Massermann, the cat man, Makes cats neurotic. 1899 Are cats and humans Similarly symptotic?

-Anonymous
  Popular jingle. Dr  Jules Massermann conducted some bizarre, behavioural experiments into animal neurosis.

Cruel, but composed and bland, Dumb, inscrutable and grand, SoTiberius might have sat, Had Tiberius been a cat.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Poems: Second Series,'Poor Matthias', l.40^3.

Serves you right, you horrid brat For what you did to that poor cat.

-Bemelmans, Ludwig
  Madeline and the Bad Hat.

A greyhound should be heeded lyke a snake, And neckyd lyke a drake, Backed lyke a bream, Footed lyke a catte, Taylled lyke a ratte.

-Berners, DameJuliana or Juliana Barnes   fl.14c
  Treatyse perteynynge to Hawkynge, Huntynge, Fyshynge, and Coote Armiris.

A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there.

-Darwin, Charles Robert
Quoted in  John D Barrow Pie in the Sky, Counting, Thinking and Being (1992).

It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.

-Deng Xiaoping
  Speech at CommunistYouth League conference,  Jul.

Mrs Crupp had indignantlyassured him that there wasn't room to swing a cat there; but, as Mr Dick justly observed to me† 'You know,Trotwood, I don't want to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. Therefore, what does that signify to me!'

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^50  David Copperfield, ch.35.

   At first you may think I'm as mad as a hatter When I tell you a cat must have.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
THREE DIFFERENT NAMES1939  Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats,'The Naming of Cats'.

When you notice a cat in profound meditation The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular name.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats,'The Naming of Cats'.

  Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity, There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity. He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare: At whatever timethe deed took placeö!

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
MACAVITY WASN'T THERE1939  Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats,'Macavity: The Mystery Cat'.

Avery unique cat†a French Canadian Hinayana Buddhist Beat Catholic savant.

-Ginsberg, Allen
  Of  Jack Kerouac. This Fabulous Century1950^1960.

Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.

-Graves, Robert von Ranke
  On writing novels to support his love of writing poetry. In the NewYork Times,13  Jul.

What female heart can gold despise? What cat's averse to fish?

-Gray,Thomas
  Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes, l.23^4.

But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

-Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard
  Just So Stories,'The Cat That  Walked By Himself'.

If the wild bowler thinks he bowls Or if the batsman thinks he's bowled, They know not, poor misguided souls, They too shall perish unconsoled. I am the batsman and the bat, I am the bowler and the ball, The umpire, the pavilion cat, The roller, pitch, and stumps and all. See Emerson 313:39.

-Lang, Andrew
'Brahma'. Quoted by Alan Richardson in a letter to The Times, 18 May,1963.

'Thoughwehaddeykilledthecat, yat sholdethere come another To cracchen us ans al oure kynde, though we cropen under benches.'

-Langland,William
c.1377   The wise mouse advises against belling the cat. Piers Plowman (B text), prologue, l.185^6. (cracchen = scratch, cropen = crept)

He has gone to fish, for his Aunt Jobiska's Runcible Cat with crimson whiskers!

-Lear, Edward
NonsenseSongs, Stories, Botany and  Alphabets,'The Pobble Who Has No Toes'.

Then, beneath the nine-tailed cat Shall they who use it writhe, sir; And curates lean, and rectors fat, Shall dig the ground they tithe, sir. Down with your Bayleys, and your Bests, Your Giffords, and your Gurneys; We'll clear the island of the pests, Which mortals name attorneys.

-1st Baron
  'A Radical War Song', stanza 8. The names are those of lawyers and judges who figured in the trial of the Cato Street conspirators.

A colossal bore† I feel I could write something like it tomorrow, if my cat inspired me by walking over the piano. See Gounod 365:26.

-Me¤  rime¤  e, Prosper
Of  Wagner's opera Tannha«  user, after the disastrous premi e' re of its revised version at the Paris Ope¤  ra,13 Mar. Quoted in  Joanna Richardson La Vie Parisienne (1971), p.262.

When the tea is brought at five o'clock, And all the neat curtains are drawn with care, The little black cat with bright green eyes Is suddenly purring there.

-Monro, Harold Edward
  'Milk for the Cat'.