Animals feed; man eats. Only the man of intellect and judgment knows how to eat.
All animals but men know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it -and they do enjoy it as much as man and other circumstances will allow it.
They smell, they snarl and they scratch; they have a singular aptitude for shredding rugs, drapes and upholstery; they're sneaky, selfish and not at all smart; they are disloyal, condescending and totally useless in any rodent free environment.
...But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first.
When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not more of a pastime to her than she is to me?
Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly.
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.
From the fact there are 400,000 species of beetles on this planet, but only 8,000 species of mammals, he concluded that the Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles, and so we might be more likely to meet them than any other type of animal on a planet that would support life.
When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism!
The only mystery about the cat is why it ever decided to become a domesticated animal.
Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for more assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance.
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes men from animals.
The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit on a hot stove lid again and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
O to be self balanced for contingencies! O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs as trees and animals do!
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained.