The 100 All-Time Greatest Quotes About Cats

"In the beginning, God created man, but seeing him so feeble, He gave him the cat."

By Lorenzo Jensen III

Updated 10 years ago, May 5, 2015

1.

In the beginning, God created man, but seeing him so feeble, He gave him the cat.
—Warren Eckstein

2.

There is something about the presence of a cat…that seems to take the bite out of being alone.
—Louis J. Camuti

3.

The idea of calm exists in a sitting cat.
—Jules Renard

4.

God made the cat to give man the pleasure of stroking a tiger.
—Joseph Méry

5.

As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.
—Ellen Perry Berkeley

6.

If cats could write history, their history would be mostly about cats.
—Eugen Weber

7.

If a cat spoke, it would say things like ‘Hey, I don’t see the problem here.’
—Roy Blount, Jr.

8.

If cats could talk, they wouldn’t.
—Nan Porter

9.

If there were to be a universal sound depicting peace, I would surely vote for the purr.
—Barbara L. Diamond

10.

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
—Terry Pratchett

11.

A cat is only technically an animal, being divine.
—Robert Lynd

12.

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
—Abraham Lincoln

13.

The purity of a person’s heart can be quickly measured by how they regard cats.
—Anonymous

14.

If you are worthy of its affection, a cat will be your friend, but never your slave.
—Theophile Gautier

15.

One must love a cat on its own terms.
—Paul Gray

16.

One cat just leads to another.
—Ernest Hemingway

17.

Every life should have nine cats.
—Anonymous

18.

A cat is never vulgar.
—Carl Van Vechten

19.

It is impossible to keep a straight face in the presence of one or more kittens.
—Cynthia E. Varnado

20.

Cats were put into the world to disprove the dogma that all things were created to serve man.
—Paul Gray

21.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
—Albert Schweitzer

22.

Who hath a better friend than a cat?
—William Hardwin

23.

A cat is nobody’s fool.
—Heywood Brown

24.

The great charm of cats is their rampant egotism, their devil-may-care attitude toward responsibility, their disinclination to earn an honest dollar.
—Robertson Davies

25.

Essentially, you do not so much teach your cat as bribe him.
—Lynn Hollyn

26.

Who among us hasn’t envied a cat’s ability to ignore the cares of daily life and to relax completely?
—Karen Brademeyer

27.

Cats look beyond appearances—beyond species entirely, it seems—to peer into the heart.
—Barbara L. Diamond

28.

Cats have it all—admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it.
—Rod McKuen

29.

The cat is the only animal which accepts the comforts but rejects the bondage of domesticity.
—Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon

30.

It doesn’t do to be sentimental about cats; the best ones don’t respect you for it.
—Susan Howatch

31.

A cat is a puzzle for which there is no solution.
—Hazel Nicholson

32.

When a cat chooses to be friendly, it’s a big deal, because a cat is picky.
—Mike Deupree

33.

An ordinary kitten will ask more questions than any five-year-old boy.
—Carl Van Vechten

34.

If you yell at a cat, you’re the one who is making a fool of yourself.
—Unknown

35.

If I die before my cat, I want a little of my ashes put in his food so I can live inside him.
—Drew Barrymore

36.

There is, incidentally, no way of talking about cats that enables one to come off as a sane person.
—Dan Greenberg

37.

Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement, and love without penalties.
—Walter Lionel George

38.

A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal.
—Agnes Repplier

39.

It is easy to understand why the rabble dislike cats. A cat is beautiful; it suggests ideas of luxury cleanliness, voluptuous pleasures.
—Charles Baudelaire

40.

The cat is such a perfect symbol of beauty and superiority that it seems scarcely possible for any true aesthete and civilized cynic to do other than worship it.
—H. P. Lovecraft

41.

Who would believe such pleasure from a wee ball o’ fur?
—Irish Saying

42.

A cat never discusses his business with humans, not even Princesses. A cat never explains and never apologizes. A cat never alibis. You must accept a cat as it is and for what it is and not expect more than the pleasure of its company.
—Terry Brooks

43.

Those who’ll play with cats must expect to be scratched.
—Miguel de Cervantes

44.

Most humans know better than to cross a wizard. A cat does not care.
—F. T. McKinstry

45.

You cannot look at a sleeping cat and feel tense.
—Jane Pauley

46.

When my cats aren’t happy, I’m not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they’re just sitting there thinking up ways to get even.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

47.

People that don’t like cats haven’t met the right one yet.
—Deborah A. Edwards

48.

Just watching my cats can make me happy.
—Paula Cole

49.

Cats conspire to keep us at arm’s length.
—Frank Perkins

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50.

Indeed, there is nothing on this earth more peaceful than a sleeping, purring cat.
—Jonathon Scott Payne

51.

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.
—Jules Verne

52.

A cat isn’t fussy—just so long as you remember he likes his milk in the shallow, rose-patterned saucer and his fish on the blue plate. From which he will take it, and eat it off the floor.
—Arthur Bridges

53.

Like a graceful vase, a cat, even when motionless, seems to flow.
—George F. Will

54.

People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life.
—Faith Resnick

55.

Time spent with cats is never wasted.
—Sigmund Freud

56.

Cat hate reflects an ugly, stupid, loutish, bigoted spirit. There can be no compromise with this Ugly Spirit.
—William S. Burroughs

57.

The cat is domestic only as far as suits its own ends.
—Saki

58.

Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.
—Missy Dizick

59.

My cat speaks sign language with her tail.
—Robert A. Stern

60.

The city of cats and the city of men exist one inside the other, but they are not the same city.
—Italo Calvino

61.

Cats rule the world.
—Jim Davis

62.

You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats.
—Proverb

63.

Cats come and go without ever leaving.
—Martha Curtis

64.

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
—Jean Cocteau

65.

The cat seldom interferes with other people’s rights. His intelligence keeps him from doing many of the fool things that complicate life.
—Carl Van Vechten

66.

I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
—Edgar Allan Poe

67.

When a cat flatters…he is not insincere: you may safely take it for real kindness.
—Walter Savage Landor

68.

Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many different ailments, but I have never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.
—Joseph Wood Krutch

69.

Human beings are drawn to cats because they are all we are not—self-contained, elegant in everything they do, relaxed, assured, glad of company, yet still possessing secret lives.
—Pam Brown

70.

Cats don’t like change without their consent.
—Roger Caras

71.

Cats have a scam going—you buy the food, they eat the food, they go away; that’s the deal.
—Eddie Izzard

72.

I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It’s not. Mine had me trained in two days.
—Bill Dana

73.

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.
—Joseph Wood Krutch

74.

when I am feeling
low
all i have to do is
watch my cats
and my
courage
returns
—Charles Bukowski

75.

I have lived with several Zen masters—all of them cats.
—Eckhart Tolle

76.

Five cats and a woman. That is all I need in life.
—Alejandro Jodorowsky

77.

I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.
—Hippolyte Taine

78.

My cat is not insane, she’s just a really good actress.
—P. C. Cast, Untamed

79.

Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.
—Pam Brown

80.

A cat pours his body on the floor like water.
—William Lyon Phelps

81.

There’s no need for a piece of sculpture in a home that has a cat.
—Wesley Bates

82.

Time spent with a cat is never wasted.
—Colette

83.

The cat is the only animal without visible means of support who still manages to find a living in the city.
—Carl van Vechten

84.

I read that when cats are cuddling and kneading you, and you think it’s cute, they’re really just checking your vitals for weak spots.
—Kandyse McClure

85.

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
—Leonardo da Vinci

86.

If there is one spot of sun spilling onto the floor, a cat will find it and soak it up.
—J. A. McIntosh

87.

Kittens are born with their eyes shut. They open them in about six days, take a look around, then close them again for the better part of their lives.
—Stephen Baker

88.

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?
—Michel de Montaigne

89.

People say the Internet’s made of cats. The reason isn’t because of cats; it’s because people like to have an emotion where they say ‘aww’ all at the same time.
—Jonah Peretti

90.

A cat is an example of sophistication minus civilization.
—Author Unknown

91.

The human race can be roughly divided into two categories: ailurophiles and ailurophobes—cat lovers and the underprivileged.
—David Taylor

92.

The reason cats climb is so that they can look down on almost every other animal—it’s also the reason they hate birds.
—K. C. Buffington

93.

A cat can be trusted to purr when she is pleased, which is more than can be said for human beings.
—William Ralph Inge

94.

Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.
—James Herriot

95.

After scolding one’s cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference.
—Charlotte Gray

96.

Kind old ladies assure us that cats are often the best judges of character. A cat will always go to a good man, they say.
—Virginia Woolf

97.

The cat could very well be man’s best friend but would never stoop to admitting it.
—Doug Larson

98.

All cat stories start with this statement: My mother, who was the first cat, told me this…
—Shirley Jackson

99.

There are few things in life more heartwarming than to be welcomed by a cat.
—Tay Hohoff

100.

If cats looked like frogs we’d realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That’s what people remember.
—Terry Pratchett