Cats

The word joy is too great and grand to be confused with the superficial things we call happiness. ~ Kirby Page

The way to happiness:
Keep your heart free from hate,
your mind from worry,
live simply, expect little, give much.

With fun and frolic may you fill each day full
And, kitten-like, be always bright and playful.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
~ Helen Keller

Many indeed think of being happy with God in heaven, but being happy with God on earth never enters their minds. ~ John Wesley

Happiness is the delicate balance between what one is and what one has.
~ F. H. Denison

If a dog jumps into your lap it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing it is because your lap is warmer. ~ A. N. Whitehead

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
~ Albert Schweitzer

Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission. . . the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance. ~ Saki

Faith is the subtle chain which binds us to the infinite.
~ Elizabeth Oakes Smith

Joy is never in our power, and pleasure is. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted joy would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasure in the world. ~ C. S. Lewis

A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones. A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. ~ Proverbs 15:30; 17:22

How many cold and lonely midnights have been warmed by the simple presence of this small being, whose affection pervades our solitude?
~ Carl Van Vechten

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. ~ Agatha Christie

Every person has his choice of becoming a fountain of joy or a fountain of sorrow. ~ Anonymous

It is not the level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and the way we look at the world. Both attitudes are within our power, so that a man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy, and no one can stop him. ~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third.
~ Marge Piercy

The really happy person is the one who can enjoy the scenery even when he has to take a detour.

There is a wonderful, mystical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life—happiness, freedom, and peace of mind—are always attained by giving them to someone else. ~ Anonymous

Joy is a positive thing: in joy one does not only feel secure, but something goes out from oneself to the universe, a warm, positive effluence of love.
~ Richard Hooker

If you cannot find happiness along the way,
you cannot find it at the end of the road.

It was difficult to feel vexed by a creature that burst into a chorus of purring as soon as I spoke to him. ~ Philip Brown

Happiness doesn't depend on the actual number of blessings we manage to scratch from life, but on our attitude toward them. ~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Most people are just like cats in that if you rub them the right way, they will purr. But if you rub them the wrong way, they will bite and scratch.
~ William Ross

Happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.
~ Hosea Ballou

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch

Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one belongs. . . . All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be something they are not, to do something they cannot do. Contentment, and indeed usefulness, comes as the infallible result of greater acceptances, great humilities—of not trying to make ourselves this or that (to conform to some dramatized version of ourselves), but of surrendering ourselves to the fullness of life—of letting life flow through us. ~ David Grayson

True joy is not a thing of moods, not a capricious emotion, tied to fluctuating experiences. It is a state and condition of the soul. It survives through pain and sorrow and, like a subterranean spring, waters the whole life. It is intimately allied and bound up with love and goodness, and so is deeply rooted in the life of God. ~ Rufus Matthew Jones

A cat cares for you only as a source of food, security and a place in the sun. Her high self-sufficiency is her charm. ~ Charles Horton Cooley

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do. ~ Freya Stark

The only thing that makes one place more attractive to me than another is the quantity of heart I find in it. ~ Jane Welsh Carlyle

Strength is born in the deep silence of long suffering hearts; not amid joy.
~ Felicia Hemans

Happiness is as a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about. ~ Kingsley

The Prettiest Kitten
I sprang to life with playful merry face,
The prettiest kitten of my pretty race;
My mother purr'd her joys
with fond surprise
And watched with anxious care
my opening eyes.
~ Charles Lamb

Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude. ~ Denis Waitley

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough. Without your woe. No path is wholly rough. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The cat has nine lives: three for playing, three for straying, three for staying.
~ English Proverb

The kitten sleeps upon the hearth,
The crickets long have ceased their mirth,
There's nothing stirring in the house
Save one, wee, hungry nibbling mouse.
~ Dorothy Wordsworth

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. ~ Bertrand Russell

Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.
~ Leo Tolstoy

Humility is strong—not bold;
quiet—not speechless;
sure—not arrogant.
~ Estelle Smith

The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again.
Nor upon a cold stove lid. ~ Mark Twain

The human heart yearns for the beautiful in all ranks of life.
~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

People need joy, quite as much as clothing. Some of them need it far more.
~ Margaret Collier Graham

I may not be able to accomplish as much as some others, but I can be just as happy as any man can be. ~ Charles Allen

Kittens are generally the delight of young children, and make charming playmates when treated gently, and not simply made toys of.
~ A Victorian Book on Cats

God made the cat in order that man might have the pleasure of caressing the lion. ~ Fernand Mery

I asked God for all things so I could enjoy life. He gave me life so I could enjoy all things. ~ Anonymous

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
~ Albert Einstein

I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.
~ Charlotte Bronte

He who bends to himself a joy
Doth the wingéd life destroy;
But he who kisses a joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sunrise.
~ William Blake

Happiness is caused by things that happen around me, and circumstances will mar it; but joy flows right on through trouble; joy flows on through the dark; joy flows in the night as well as in the day; joy flows all through persecution and opposition. It is an unceasing fountain bubbling up in the heart; a secret spring the world can't see and doesn't know anything about. The Lord gives his people perpetual joy when they walk in obedience to him.
~ Dwight Lyman Moody

Guard within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness. Know how to replace in your heart, by the happiness of those you love, the happiness you may be wanting yourself. ~ George Sand

The cat is domestic only as far as suits its own ends; it will not be kennelled or harnessed nor suffer any dictation as to its goings-out or comings-in. ~ Saki

The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart. ~ Annie Dillard

Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
~ William Cowper

Like those great sphinxes lounging through eternity in noble attitudes upon the desert sand, they gaze incuriously at nothing, calm and wise.
~ Charles Baudelaire

Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.
~ Christopher Morley

The real objection to the great majority of cats is their insufferable air of superiority. ~ P. G. Woodhouse

The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. ~ Psalm 126:3

The playful kitten, with its pretty little tigerish gambols, is infinitely more amusing than half the people one is obliged to live with in the world.
~ Lady Sydney Morgan

The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier

On the pursuit of happiness half the world is on the wrong scent. They think it consists in having and getting, and in being served by others. Happiness is really found in giving and in serving others. ~ Henry Drummond

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away
with the spoon.
~ Nursery Rhyme

The Bible speaks of a time when all tears shall be wiped away. But it makes no mention of a time when we shall cease to smile. ~ J. D. Eppinga

The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. ~ Psalm 28:7

To be with those we love is enough, ah, how true it is! and it is a happiness which will outlast this life. In this thought I love to rest. ~ Madame Swetchine

The heart that is to be filled to the brim with holy joy must be held still.
~ George Seaton Bowes

There is no such thing as the pursuit of happiness,
but there is the discovery of joy.
~ Joyce Grenfell

I don't think of all the misery, but all the beauty that still remains.
~ Anne Frank

It [the cat] will consent to be your friend if you are worthy of the honour,
but it will not be your slave. ~ Théophile Gautier

It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness.
~ Michel de Montaigne

The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us. ~ Ashley Montagu

The only security for happiness is to have a mind filled with the love of the infinite and the eternal. ~ Spinoza

To be able to find joy in another's joy: that is the secret of happiness.
~ Georges Bernanos

For the heart that finds joy
In small things,
in all things,
Each day is a wonderful gift.

DAY 752 - My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another house plant.

DAY 761 - Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded .... must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair....must try this on their bed.

DAY 765 - Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was...Hmmm. Not working according to plan.

DAY 768 - I am finally aware of how sadistic they are. For no good reason I was chosen for the water torture. This time however it included a burning foamy chemical called "shampoo." What sick minds could invent such a liquid. My only consolation is the piece of thumb still stuck between my teeth.

DAY 771 - There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the foul odor of what they call "pizza." More importantly, I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.

DAY 774 - I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird on the other hand has got to be an informant, and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room his safety is assured. But I can wait, it is only a matter of time.......