Returning the Feline Gaze

So many of us – in fascination and intrigue – have pondered the nature of felinity.  A score of observations and declarations appear below. Still, the mysteries of felinity remain elusive.

The cat is domestic only as far as suits its own ends... - Saki (H. H. Munro)

If cats could talk, they wouldn't. - Nan Porter

Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this. - Anonymous

The cat is mighty dignified until the dog comes by. - Southern Folk Saying

"I gave an order to a cat, and the cat gave it to its tail" - Chinese Proverb

When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her? - Montaigne

Prowling his own quiet backyard or asleep by the fire, he is still only a whisker away from the wilds. - Jean Burden

If he is comic, it is only because of the incongruity of so demure a look and so wild a heart. - Alan Devoe

Cats are a mysterious kind of folk. There is more passing in their minds than we are aware of." - Sir Walter Scott

I simply can’t resist a cat, particularly a purring one. They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, outside of the girl you love, of course. – Mark Twain

"Cats are connoisseurs of comfort." - James Herriot

The smallest feline is a masterpiece. - Leonardo da Vinci

Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance. - Saki

Of all animals, the cat alone attains to the contemplative life. He regards the wheel of existence from without, like the Buddha. - Andrew Lang

A cat is an example of sophistication minus civilization. -Unknown

"It always gives me a shiver when I see a cat seeing what I can't see." - Eleanor Farjeon

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

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

If animals could speak the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much. - Mark Twain

"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea." - Robert A. Heinlein

"The cat, which is a solitary beast, is single minded and goes its way alone; but the dog, like his master, is confused in his mind." - H.G. Wells

"Surely the cat, when it assumes the meat loaf position and gazes meditatively through slitted eyes, is pondering thoughts of utter profundity..." - Mij Colson Barnum

No tame animal has lost less of its native dignity or maintained more if its ancient reserve. The domestic cat might rebel tomorrow. - William Conway