Everyone has their favorite expressions about cats, so it’s no wonder that some of humanity’s most famous figures have a lot to say about felines, too.
We’ve collected 50 of the most memorable cat quips spoken or put to pen by famous people from all walks of life.
Read the funny, heartwarming, and profound quotes about cats below, uttered by such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Emily Dickinson, and Ernest Hemingway!
50 Famous Quotes About Cats
- 1. “I take care of my flowers and my cats. And enjoy food. And that’s living.”
— Ursula Andress (actress, Dr. No) - 2. “A lie is like a cat: You need to stop it before it gets out the door or it’s really hard to catch.”
— Charles M. Blow (columnist) - 3. “That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.”
― Ray Bradbury (author, Fahrenheit 451) - 4. “Cats and dogs believe politicians are like cemetery caregivers — they are on top of everyone, but nobody listens.”
— Rita Mae Brown (author, Rubyfruit Jungle) - 5. “My relationships with my cats has saved me from a deadly, pervasive ignorance.”
— William S. Burroughs (author, The Naked Lunch) - 6. “’Meow’ means ‘woof’ in cat.”
— George Carlin (comedian) - 7. “It is very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that, whatever you say to them they always purr.”
— Lewis Carroll (author, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) - 8. “Cats choose us; we don’t own them.”
— Kristin Cast (author, House of Night series) - 9. “Those who’ll play with cats must expect to be scratched.”
— Miguel de Cervantes (author, Don Quixote) - 10. “I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.”
— Jean Cocteau (director, Orpheus) - 11. “Time spent with a cat is never wasted.”
— Colette (author, Gigi) - 12. “Way down deep, we’re all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them.”
— Jim Davis (cartoonist, Garfield) - 13. “What greater gift than the love of a cat?”
— Charles Dickens (author, Great Expectations) - 14. “You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”
— Albert Einstein (theoretical physicist) - 15. “Making movies is like herding cats.”
— Eric Fellner (movie producer, Fargo) - 16. “A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.”
— Benjamin Franklin (Founding Father of the United States) - 17. “Time spent with cats is never wasted.”
— Sigmund Freud (psychoanalyst) - 18. “Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement, and love without penalties.”
— Walter Lionel George (author, A Bed of Roses) - 19. “Cats will outsmart dogs every time.”
— John Grogan (author, Marley & Me) - 20. “How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven.”
— Robert A. Heinlein (author, Red Planet) - 21. “A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.”
— Ernest Hemingway (author, For Whom the Bell Tolls) - 22. “She sights a Bird—she chuckles—/She flattens—then she crawls—/She runs without the look of feet—/Her eyes increase to Balls—”
— Emily Dickinson (poet, Because I could not stop for Death) - 23. “Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.”
— James Herriot (author, All Creatures Great and Small) - 24. “If your cat falls out of a tree, go indoors to laugh.”
— Pat Hitchcock (actress, Alfred Hitchcock Presents) - 25. “If you want to write, keep cats.”
— Aldous Huxley (author, Brave New World) - 26. “A cat can be trusted to purr when she is pleased, which is more than can be said for human beings.”
— William Ralph Inge (author, Outspoken Essays) - 27. “Curiosity killed the cat.”
— Ben Johnson (playwright, Every Man in His Humour) - 28. “I used to love dogs until I discovered cats.”
— Nafisa Joseph (model) - 29. “Cats, like men, are flatterers.”
— Walter Savage Landor (author, Imaginary Conversations) - 30. “The smallest feline is a masterpiece.”
— Leonardo da Vinci (artist, Mona Lisa) - 31. “In its flawless grace and superior self-sufficiency I have seen a symbol of the perfect beauty and bland impersonality of the universe itself, objectively considered, and in its air of silent mystery there resides for me all the wonder and fascination of the unknown.”
— H.P. Lovecraft (author, At the Mountains of Madness) - 32. “Artists like cats; soldiers like dogs.”
— Desmond Morris (author, The Naked Ape) - 33. “Cats do not have to be shown how to have a good time, for they are unfailing ingenious in that respect.”
— James Mason (actor, North by Northwest) - 34. “I regard cats as one of the great joys in the world. I see them as a gift of highest order.”
— Trisha McCagh (animal communicator) - 35. “Cats have it all — admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it.”
— Rod McKuen (poet, Stanyan Street & Other Sorrows) - 36. “A dog will flatter you but you have to flatter the cat.”
— George Mikes (author, How to be an Alien) - 37. “People with insufficient personalities are fond of cats. These people adore being ignored.”
— Sir Henry Morgan (privateer) - 38. “Cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people that it is often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.”
— P.J. O’Rourke (author, Parliament of Whores) - 39. “You can not look at a sleeping cat and feel tense.”
— Jane Pauley (journalist, The Today Show) - 40. “I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.”
— Edgar Allan Poe (author, “The Raven”) - 41. “The problem with cats is that they get the same exact look whether they see a moth or an ax-murderer.”
— Paula Poundstone (comedian) - 42. “There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.”
— Albert Schweitzer (theologian and physician) - 43. “I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.”
— William Shakespeare (playwright, Henry IV) - 44. “I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.”
― Hippolyte Taine (critic) - 45. “I have lived with several Zen masters — all of them cats.”
— Eckhart Tolle (author, The Power of Now) - 46. “Of all God’s creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”
— Mark Twain (author, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) - 47. “Cats are smarter than dogs. You can’t get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.”
— Jeff Valdez (producer, Urban Jungle) - 48. “I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.”
— Jules Verne (author, Journey to the Center of the Earth) - 49. “If a dog jumps into your lap it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing it is because your lap is warmer.”
— A.N. Whitehead (mathematician and philosopher) - 50. “The phrase ‘domestic cat’ is an oxymoron.”
— George Will (columnist)
Which quote about cats do you love the most? Do you have a favorite cat quote that didn’t make it onto our list? Then let us know what it is and who said it in the comments below!
