Cats As Superior Beings

by Pat Keenor

All cat owners are aware of the superior air exhibited by their pets. They seem to relish their independence but generously allow us to be their closest companions. Dogs learn tricks but cats are practically untrainable and they have managed to convince us that it's not because they are less intelligent but because they really can't be bothered. They manipulate us with their wiles and entrance us - when they feel like it - with their quirky behaviour and so wrap us around their little paws. Some of the most talented and clever people in the world have recognised the fact that cats are superior and sometimes supercilious beings. I'll let them tell  you all about it in their own words.

Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley

"When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but
because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even." 

Comedian and actor Bill Dana

"I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not.
Mine had me trained in two days." 

Actor Kandyse McClure

"I read that when cats are cuddling and kneading you, and you think it's cute, 

they're really just checking your vitals for weak spots."

Writer and journalist Christopher Hitchens

"Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and
shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled
to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection,
they draw the conclusion that they are God."

Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle

"I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them cats."

Writer Terry Pratchett

"In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this."

Writer Cleveland Amory

"As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows,
cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind."

Poet Pam Brown

"Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that
will cause most inconvenience."

Writer Neil Gaiman

"Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets."

Writer Mark Twain

“Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. 

That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve 

the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”

Writer Elizabeth Peters

"The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal - or even better,
as the superior it knows itself to be."

Horror writer H. P. Lovecraft

"The cat is such a perfect symbol of beauty and superiority that it seems scarcely possible

for any true aesthete and civilised cynic to do other than worship it."

Writer and film-maker Megan Boyle

"My cat is always looking at me like I am forgetting something
crucial and he depends on it."

Blogger and writer Will Wiles

"Nothing snubs quite like a cat. What evolutionary purpose did it serve, 

this inherent disdain, this artful blanking?"

Critic and historian Hippolyte Taine

"The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior."