“The basic fascination I have with cats is nothing unusual. I find them very intelligent and very superior. And I feel entranced by them. If I see one in the street I feel immediately drawn to the cat. I have a friend, Chrissie Hynde [the singer with The Pretenders], she’s exactly the same. You can be walking with her along the street, she sees a cat, she walks away. You continue to walk on, talking to no one. You look around and she’s crouched down with a cat in a hedge. I’m exactly the same way. I’m fascinated by them.” — “Morrissey on… privacy, the Queen and The Smiths”, The Daily Telegraph, 17vi11
Tag Archives: quotes about cats
Moz on Mogz
Cats and Dogmas
« Les chats furent créés dans notre monde pour réfuter le dogme que toutes choses furent créées pour servir l’Homme. » — Froquevielle
• “Cats were created in our world to refute the dogma that everything was created to serve mankind.”
Post-Performative Post-Scriptum
I can’t find any more details of “Froquevielle”, which may be a misspelling.
Félosophisme
« Tous les chats sont mortels, Socrate est mortel, donc Socrate est un chat. » — Rhinocéros (1959) par Eugène Ionesco (1931-94)
• “All cats are mortal, Socrates is mortal, therefore Socrates is a cat.”
Lavoro di Leonardo?
I first came across this quote about cats in French:
« Le plus petit des félins est une œuvre d’art. »
• “The smallest of felines is a work of art.”
It’s widely attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, but I can’t find any proof that he ever said it. Here it is in a fuller Italian version:
« Anche il più piccolo dei felini, il gatto, è un capolavoro. »
• Même le plus petit des félins, le chat, est un chef-d’œuvre.
•• Even the smallest of felines, the cat, is a masterpiece.
It’s a good quote, wherever it comes from. But the attribution to Leonardo reminds of another saying in Italian: Se non è vero, è ben trovato — “If it’s not true, it’s a happy invention.”

(From Pinterest)

Leonardo’s Étude du mouvement des chats
Parlez-vous franchat?
French novelist Colette was a firm cat-lover. When she was in the U.S. she saw a cat sitting in the street. She went over to talk to it and the two of them mewed at each other for a friendly minute. Colette turned to her companion and exclaimed, “Enfin! Quelqu’un qui parle français.” (At last! Someone who speaks French!) — viâ Cat Ladies and a book whose title I forget
Queer Here
“Bells are like cats and mirrors — they’re always queer, and it doesn’t do to think too much about them.” — Dorothy L. Sayers, The Nine Tailors (1934)