A Quote by Barbara Mertz

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. — © Barbara Mertz
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.
People don't want to treat their nannies subserviently. They don't want to act like bosses. And so nobody quite knows how to behave, and everyone is slightly pretending that the mother and nanny are 'equal' - when that's not the case. And pretending you are equal can make things complicated, even dangerous.
...But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first.
Oh cat, I'd say, or pray: be-ootiful cat! Delicious cat! Exquisite cat! Satiny cat! Cat like a soft owl, cat with paws like moths, jewelled cat, miraculous cat! Cat, cat, cat, cat.
When you treat people well, those same people might not treat you the same way. But if you pay attention, you'll notice that Allah has sent OTHER people who treat you even better.
Quite obviously a cat trusts human beings; but she doesn't trust another cat because she knows better than we do.
Having your book edited is like watching your cat being operated on. It's uncomfortable and someone is probably going to get hurt. Most likely the cat. But in the end, things work out for the best and your cat is better it. And then your cat gets released in hardcover, and you have to read all of his reviews.
Don’t you listen to them, Rexy,” I cooed, and the cat sniffed my nose. “Rachel is a smart girl. She’s not going to go out with a ghost no matter how sexy he is. She knows better. Jenkskie wenskie can just get bent.” I beamed at Jenks, and he made an ugly face. “Rache, put my cat down before you mess with her kitty brain.
A cat knows how to be comfortable, how to get the people around it to serve it. In a tranquil domestic situation, the cat is a veritable manipulative genius. It seeks the soft, it seeks the warm, it prefers the quiet and it loves to be full. It displays, when it gets its own way in these matters, a degree of contentment we would all like to emulate.
Don't treat people the way they treat you. Treat them better.
Many people came out and said, 'Boy I'd love to make a film that way.' Well, borrow some money, get some people together - you can get people to work for nothing, just treat them right, treat them as human beings, not stars, give them all an equal share, make them feel a part of what they're doing. There's no big secret to it.
I don't hold animals superior or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable of imagination, rationality, and moral choice - and that is precisely why we are under an obligation to recognize and respect the rights of animals.
You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, my father used to say; it bothered me, I didn't see why they would want to skin a cat even one way.
I wanted to talk about how grace in and of itself changes us. It changes the way we treat other people, the way we view our lives, the way we treat our purpose and our eternal identity.
Wimbledon is not the tournament I love. I don't like how they treat the players. There are small things that don't cost them anything and they make such a big deal out of it. If they treat us this way, well, we have to treat them the same. We want to be respected, the way we respect Wimbledon, even if it is not the best Grand Slam on earth.
Better to be the cat gazing coolly down from a high wall, its expression inscrutable. The cat that shunned petting, that needed no one. Why couldn't she be that cat?
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