Famous Cat Lovers

By Jennifer Copley (Last Updated 31 December 2011)

Sir Isaac Newton

Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Gardner, Wikimedia Commons

Sir Isaac Newton is best known for defining the laws of gravity, but he was also the inventor of the cat flap. Newton’s cat would often nudge the laboratory door open when he was conducting light experiments. Newton didn’t want to banish his cat from the lab but the sunlight the cat let in was a problem, so he cut a hole in the laboratory door and covered it with a felt flap, enabling the cat to come and go freely. Later, when his cat had kittens, Newton made smaller kitten-sized holes in the lab door, even though they could have easily used the larger cat door, which shows that even a genius can miss the obvious.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Physician, philosopher, musician, theologian, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Albert Schweitzer was an animal lover with a particular fondness for cats. Schweitzer claimed that “Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace” and that “It is man’s sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man.” On the subject of felines, he is noted for saying “There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.”

Abraham Lincoln

Sixteenth U.S. president Abraham Lincoln spent so many hours playing with his pets that when she was asked if her husband had any hobbies, Mary Todd Lincoln said “cats.” In addition to caring for orphaned kittens, the Lincolns kept a dog, horse, goats, and rabbits. Lincoln even spared the life of a Thanksgiving turkey at his son’s request. On the subject of felines, Lincoln is quoted as saying: “No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.”

Mark Twain

Author and humourist Mark Twain, praised by William Faulkner as “the father of American literature,” once wrote: “Of all God’s creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.” Twain had a number of pet cats with fabulous names such as Sour Mash, Zoroaster, Appollinaris, and Blatherskite.

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale, widely hailed as the mother of modern nursing for her contributions to patient care, health policy, hospital design and management, and medical hygiene, believed that cats possessed more feeling and sympathy than people. She kept as many as 17 cats at a time and had a strong interest in improving veterinary care. Nightingale carefully chose what she considered to be high-quality mates for her cats only to discover that they often preferred lowly tomcats from the local mews.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci, artist, writer, mathematician, engineer, architect, botanist, musician, and inventor, was an animal lover with a particular fondness for cats. He once wrote “The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men” and asserted that “The smallest feline is a masterpiece.” Many of da Vinci’s works feature cats, and his painting, Madonna with the Cat, is based upon the legend of a cat born at the same time as Jesus Christ. Da Vinci had a number of pets over his lifetime, including cats, dogs, and horses.

Ernest Hemingway

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Ernest Hemingway shared his home with an enormous number of cats. Today, approximately 60 cats live at the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, descendents of his pets and other local cats from the shipping era that were kept to catch rodents before the use of pesticides. Many of these cats have more than five toes, as they are descendents of a six-toed (polydactyl) cat given to Hemingway by a ship’s captain.

Robert Heinlein

Robert Heinlein, one of the most popular and influential science fiction writers of all time, was an ailurophile to which a number of notable quotes are attributed, including “How you behave toward cats here below determines your status in Heaven” and “If you would know a man, observe how he treats a cat.”

Winston Churchill

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill owned a number of cats, including Nelson, who accompanied him to wartime cabinet meetings, and Jock, who was so beloved that Churchill’s will requires that a Marmalade cat named Jock must live at his estate at all times. Jock IV is the current cat incumbent.

For more cat quotes, visit the main Cat Quotations page. For more feline history, see the Cat History page. For a full list of cat articles, see the main Cats page