1cat \’kat\ n, often attrib [ME, fr. OE catt; akin to OHG kazza cat; both from a prehist. NGmc-WGmc word prob. borrowed fr. LL cattus, catta cat)] 1a : a carnivorous mammal (Felis catus) long domesticated and kept by man as a pet or for catching rats and mice

Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1979

Why is there so much said about violins and dogs and almost nothing about pianos and cats?

Orlando Park, The Sherlock Holmes Encyclopedia

And if sometimes I bite at it with a kind of tentative anger, if more often I lick it with a reluctant gentleness, if long I sit gazing or lie brooding upon it, I have my reasons, yes. You do not understand.

M. J. Engh, The Tail
The animal which the Egyptians worshipped as divine, which the Romans venerated as a symbol of liberty, which Europeans in the ignorant Middle ages anathematised as an agent of demonology, has displayed to all ages two closely blended characteristics – courage and self-respect.

SAKI (H. H. Munro), The Achievment of the Cat		 Knowing cats, a lifetime of cats, what is left is sediment of sorrow quite different from that due to humans: compounded of pain for their helplessness, of guilt on behalf of us all.

Doris Lessing, Rufus the Survivor		 Cat-haters will try to floor you with the old argument, ‘If cats are so smart, why can’t they do tricks, the way dogs do?’ It isn’t that cats can’t do tricks; it’s that they won’t.

Paul Gallico, My Boss the Cat
Messe ocus Pangur bán,
cechtar nathar fria saindán;
bíth a menma-sam fri seilgg,
mu menma céin im saincheirdd

Caraim-se fós, ferr cach clú,
oc mu lebrán léir ingnu;
ní foirmtech frimm Pangur bán,
caraid cesin a maccdán.

Ó ru-biam (scél cén scis)
innar tegdias ar n-oéndis,
táithiunn (dichríchide clius)
ní fris 'tarddam ar n-áthius.

Gnáth-huaraib ar greassaib gal
glenaid luch ina lín-sam;
os me, du-fuit im lín chéin
dliged ndoraid cu n-dronchéill.

Fúachaid-sem fri freaga fál
a rosc a nglése comlán;
fúachimm chéin fri fégi fis
mu rosc réil, cesu imdis.

Fáelid-sem cu n-déne dul,
hi nglen luch ina gérchrub;
hi-tucu cheist n-doraid n-dil,
os mé chene am fáelid.

Cia beimini amin nach ré
ní derban cách a chéle;
mait le cechtar nár a dán
subaigthiud a óenurán.

Hé fesin as choimsid dáu
in muid du-n-gní cach óenláu;
do thabairt doraid du glé
for mumud céin am messe.

Irish Monk, 8th century; Pangur Bán		 I and Pangur Bán, my cat
'Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will,
He too plies his childish skill.

'Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thoughts set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and shard and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffrey

...

For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.


Christopher Smart, Rejoice in the Lamb (excerpt)

A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.

Ernest Hemingway		 I think what makes us [cat people] feel superior is not that we have a cat in our homes, but that a cat has found us acceptable to live with. There's a thrill in that that a dog owner will never know.

Haskel Frankel, Foreword to Dr. L. J. Camuti's book "All My Patients Are Under the Bed - Memoirs of a Cat Doctor"		 One cat leads to another.

Ernest Hemingway (The ownee of a 30-odd cats - all known by character and name)

  
To understand the mind, and world, of a cat would be a difficult and subtle task - beyond the barbarous methods of a physiologist like Pavlov - for, to begin with, there is their double life: their life with us, and their secret life to themselves, away from humans.

A. L. Rowse, Three Cornish Cats		 The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Carl Sandburg, Fog (from Chicago Poems)		  

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