How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven. — Cats

"When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there — in sunny weather — stretched at full length, asleep and blissful, with her furry belly to the sun and a paw curved over her nose. Then that house was complete, and its contentment and peace were made manifest to the world by this symbol, whose testimony is infallible. A home without a cat—and a well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat—may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?"

"A cat which dares to scratch me while were at peace, no matter how many times it may then caress me, shall never be allowed to be close enough to me to scratch me again."

"... In Wales the cat was held in great estimation. It was enacted by , "the Good," that the price of a kitten before it could see was to be a penny; if it caught a mouse, its value was raised to twopence, and afterwards to fourpence. If any one stole or killed a cat that guarded the princes , the offender was compelled either to forfeit a ewe, or as much wheat as would cover the cat when suspended by its tail."

"I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnsons breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, "why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;" and then, as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, "but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed."

"... in 2007 ... a study of the DNA of the entire cat family—the —revealed that it was composed of eight district groups or s. These groups diverged from their common ancestor, the catlike , at different times, beginning with the lineage (containing, among others, lions and tigers) over ten million years ago. The very last group to branch off the family tree, around 3.4 million years ago, was a lineage containing various species of small wildcat—the lineage. From genetic comparisons within the study, researchers found that the domestic cat fit within this lineage. ... In a huge project comparing genetic material from some 979 domesitc cats and wildcats, Driscoll and his colleagues discovered that all of todays domestic cats are descended from the ."

"The cat is, above all things, a dramatist; its life is lived in an endless romance though the drama is played out on quite another stage than our own, and we only enter into it as subordinate characters, as stage managers, or rather stage carpenters."