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Cats Are Intended To Teach Us That Not Everything In Nature Has A Function.
-Garrison Keillor
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Cats Are Intended To

Garrison Keillor
...
Cats Are Intended To Teach Us That Not Everything In Nature Has A Function.

Understanding the Quote: "cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has..."

This quote by Garrison Keillor reflects deeply on the theme of nature. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Nature, Cat, Garden, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Garrison Keillor interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor is celebrated for insightful thoughts on nature and cat. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 42311
Topic
Nature
Cat
Garden
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People
The Relationship Between Truth And A Newspaper Is Like The Relationship Between The Color Green And The Number Seven. Occasionally You Will See The Number Seven Written In Green, But You Learn Not To Expect This.
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When You Come To Expect Humor Of People, You Will Never Get It.
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Jesus Said The Meek Would Inherit The Earth, But So Far All We've Gotten Is Minnesota And North Dakota.
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Earth
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We Have Nearly Complete Misunderstanding Between People Of Different Faiths In Lake Wobegon, And That's Probably One Reason Why We Get Along So Very Well. It's When You Are Trying To Convince Another Person To Think The Same Way That You Do That There Is Friction And Trouble Between People. But When You Feel That The Other Person Is Dumber Than Dirt, Too Dumb For Words - Why Waste Your Breath - You Get Along Pretty Well. There's No Bond Between People That's Quite So Strong As When People Each Feel Slightly Superior Towards The Other One.
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He Was Admired For Never Being At A Loss For Words And Never Wasting Any Either.
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A Loss For Words
A Man Can't Eat Anger For Breakfast And Sleep With It At Night And Not Suffer Damage To His Soul.
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Sleep
Men
Cleverness Is A Burden After That. You Are Supposed To Settle Down And Be A Good Person, Raise Your Children, And Be Good To Your Friends, Which You May Not Have Been Back When You Were Clever.
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Nothing That Readers Say Or Do Strikes Me As A Nuisance. Anyone Who Cracks Open A Book Of Mine Is, To Me, A Gem.
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That's Why God Created Marriage, So People Wouldn't Have To Fight With Strangers.
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People
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One Day Donald Trump Will Discover That He Is Owned By Lutheran Brotherhood And Must Re Negotiate His Debt Load With A Committee Of Silent Norwegians Who Dont Understand Why Anyone Would Pay More Than $120.00 For A Suit.
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One Day
Debt
My Ancestors Were Puritans From England. They Arrived Here In 1648 In The Hope Of Finding Greater Restrictions Than Were Permissible Under English Law At That Time.
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America
England
..people (in Minnesota) Avoid Stupidity When Possible, Not Wanting To Be A $10 Haircut On A 50 Cent Head.
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Minnesota
As A Former English Major, I Am A Sitting Duck For Gift Books, And In The Past Few Years I've Gotten Dickens, Thackeray, Smollet, Richardson, Emerson, Keats, Boswell And The Brontes, All Of Them Great, None Of Them Ever Read By Me, All Of Them Now On A Shelf, Looking At Me And Making Me Feel Guilty.
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Methodists
Absolute Power
To Your Left Is The Marina Where Several Senior Cabinet Officials Keep Luxury Yachts For Weekend Cruises On The Potomac. Some Of These Ships Are Up To 100 Feet In Length; The Presidential Yacht Is Over 200 Feet In Length, And Can Remain Submerged For Up To 3 Weeks.
Senior
Weekend
Luxury
There's So Many People Who Move Around Our Country And Lose Track Of Their Own Ancestry. It's Nice To Know Where You Come From.
Country
Nice
Moving
In Romance, As In Life, You Only Learn When You're Losing.
Romance
Losing
Liberalism Is Dead, So Dead That Democrats Have All Become Moderate Republicans, And The Heavy Hand Of Big Government Is Now Limp And Damp And Trembly.
Government
Hands
Republican
The Majority Of People Who Keel Over Dead At Concerts Are Killed By A Long Trumpet Passage.
Music
Long
People
There Was A Price To Be Paid For Being Interested In Fiction And In Writing, Pushing My Family Away. Books And Authors Became My Family.
Book
Writing
Fiction
I Love New York, And I'm Drawn To A Certain Intensity Of Life, But I've Just Never Felt Like I Want To Escape From The Midwest. A Writer Lives A Great Deal In His Own Head, And So One Intuitively Finds Places Where Your Head Is More Clear. New York For Me Is One Of Those Places.
New York
Midwest
Want
Sometimes You Have To Avoid Mentioning Things Because People's Feelings Are Tender.
People
Feelings
Sometimes
Some Luck Lies In Not Getting What You Thought You Wanted But Getting What You Have.
Giving Up
Lying
Good Luck
I Was Brought Up Imagining That Cream Rises To The Top, Merit Wins Out, The Race Is To The Swift And Riches To Men Of Understanding, But It Ain't Necessarily So. The Swift Stand A Better Chance If They Are Also Beautiful.
Beautiful
Winning
Men
The Fundamental Religion Of Most Of Mankind Is The Faith That God Has Revealed Himself To Us And Not To The Barbarians. Our Tribe Is The One God Chose And So If We Vanquish The Other Tribes And Rain Fire And Destruction On Them, We're Only Carrying Out God's Will.
Rain
Fire
Religion
I Think That You Are Only Obliged To Be A Humorist From The Age Of 18 Until You Turn 30. Past The Age Of 30 I Don't Think There Is Any Obligation To Be Clever At All.
Clever
Thinking
Past
If You Lived Today As If It Were Your Last, You'd Buy Up A Box Of Rockets And Fire Them All Off, Wouldn't You?
Funny
Humor
Fire
Forget What You Learned About Poetry In School. (that It's Complex, Opaque, A Problem To Be Solved In 1500 Words By Tomorrow.) Poetry Is The Last Preserve Of Honest Speech And The Outspoken Heart. It Holds The Cadence Of Common Life. It Has A Passion For Truth And Justice And Liberty; It Is A Buoy To People In Ordinary Trouble: To A Friend Whose Life Has Gone Skidding Into The Meridian, Who Has Been Struck By Bad News, Who Is Frying Eggs And Hash Browns And Has Whiny Child Clinging To His Pant Leg.
Children
Heart
School
Thank You, Dear God, For This Good Life And Forgive Us If We Do Not Love It Enough. Thank You For The Rain. And For The Chance To Wake Up In Three Hours And Go Fishing: I Thank You For That Now, Because I Won't Feel So Thankful Then.
Thank You
Thanksgiving
Good Life
When You're A Little Kid, Your Heart Is Open And Tender And A Harsh Word Can Go Straight In And Become Part Of Your Life.
Heart
Kids
Littles
Some Of Us Have A Relentless Urge To Attempt What We Can Never Be Good At And Neglect Our True Calling.
Calling
Neglect
Relentless
A Compassionate Conservative Is Someone Who Electrocutes Juveniles But Lets Them Have A Last 'make A Wish'.
Wish
Lasts
Conservative
Powdermilk Biscuits: Heavens, Theyre Tasty And Expeditious! Theyre Made From Whole Wheat, To Give Shy Persons The Strength To Get Up And Do What Needs To Be Done
Giving
Heaven
Needs
Adolescence Hits Boys Harder Than It Does Girls. Girls Bleed A Little And Their Breasts Pop Out, Big Deal, But Adolescence Lands On A Guy With Both Feet. . . . Your Body Is Engulfed By Chemicals Of Rage And Despair, You Pound, You Shriek, You Batter Your Head Against The Trees. You Come Away Wounded, Feeling That Life Is Unknowable, Can Never Be Understood, Only Endured And Sometimes Cheated.
Girl
Boys
Feet
I Loved Feeling Special. I Hated Feeling Special.
Feelings
Special
Hated
I Felt Bad For That World That We Have Given A Generation Of Kids.
Kids
Generations
World
Selective Ignorance, A Cornerstone Of Child Rearing. You Don't Put Kids Under Surveillance: It Might Frighten You. Parents Should Sit Tall In The Saddle And Look Upon Their Troops With A Noble And Benevolent And Extremely Nearsighted Gaze.
Children
Ignorance
Kids
I Usually Don't Work With Other People; I Do The Whole Show Myself.
People
Shows
Whole
Where I Come From, When A Catholic Marries A Lutheran It Is Considered The First Step On The Road To Minneapolis.
Catholic
Firsts
Steps
Marriage, Friends, Is A Lifelong Feast; Love Is No Light Lunch.
Marriage
Love Is
Light
Vacation Cruises Are Advertised As Luxurious Journeys To Exotic Places, But A Chief Pleasure Is The Reading Of Books ... . On Steamer Chairs Topside Or Poolside, In The Lounges, Everywhere You See Men And Women With Their Noses In Books, Devouring Them For Hours.
Book
Reading
Journey
America Of The Future Will Be All Malls Connected By Interstates. All Because Your Parents No Longer Can Their Own Tomatoes.
Simple
America
Parent
... I Never Was One To Get Upset About A Few Scratches On A Motor Vehicle, It Is Meant To Be Used, Not Saved.
Motor Vehicles
Upset
Scratches
I'm Not Busy... A Woman With Three Children Under The Age Of 10 Wouldn't Think My Schedule Looked So Busy.
Children
Thinking
Age
Tv News Is As Bloody As Shakespeare But Without The Intelligence And The Poetry. If You Watch Television News You Know Less About The World Than If You Drank Gin Out Of A Bottle
Tv News
Watches
Bottles
A Person Cannot Coast Along In Old Destructive Habits Year After Year And Accept Whatever Comes Along. A Person Must Stand Up On Her Own Two Legs And Walk. Get Off The Bus And Go Get On Another. Climb Out Of The Ditch And Cross The Road. Find The Road That S Where You Want To Go. ... The Only Sermon That Counts Is The One That Is Formed By Our Actions. She Would Quit Drinking And Thereby Show Kyle Life Is What You Make It. A Person Can Grab Hold Of Her Life And Change Things For The Better. This Happens All The Time. We Are Not Chips Of Wood Drifting Down The Stream Of Time. We Have Oars.
Drinking
Years
Two
I Believe In Looking Reality Straight In The Eye And Denying It.
Fake People
Believe
Eye
Age Doesn't Always Bring Wisdom. Sometimes Age Comes Alone.
Age
Sometimes
I Want To Resume The Life Of A Shy Person.
Shy
Want
Resumes
You Get Old And You Realize There Are No Answers, Just Stories.
Age
Stories
Answers
Humor Is Not A Trick, Not Jokes. Humor Is A Presence In The World - Like Grace - And Shines On Everybody.
Shine On
Shining
Grace
An Interesting Thing About New York City Is That The Subways Run Through The Sewers.
Running
New York
Cities
I Don't Want Them To Be Told To Remember Me.
Life And Death
Want
Remember
I Write For A Radio Show That, No Matter What, Will Go On The Air Saturday At Five O'clock Central Time. You Learn To Write Toward That Deadline, To Let The Adrenaline Pick You Up On Friday Morning And Carry You Through, To Cook Up A Monologue About Lake Wobegon And Get To The Theater On Time.
Friday
Morning
Writing
Ha! Easy For Nuns To Talk About Giving Up Things. That's What They Do For A Living.
Giving Up
Giving
Easy
A Boy Wrote Me Once To Say That He Loved It When The News From Lake Wobegon Came On The Radio Because It Meant That His Parents Stopped Arguing. That Was An Eye-opener For Me. You Work Hard To Polish Your Act And Then You Find Out That It Does People Good In Ways You Couldn't Predict.
Hard Work
Eye
Boys
Most Men Are Prisoners At Best, Who Some Strong Habit Every Drag About Like Chain And Ball.
Strong
Men
Balls
I Feel It's So Hard For Young Actors; It's A Different World That They're Coming Up In; There's So Much Money To Be Made Off Of Their Personal Lives, And People Are Bound And Determined To Make That Money.
People
Different
Actors
Years Ago, Manhood Was An Opportunity For Achievement, And Now It Is A Problem To Be Overcome.
Opportunity
Years
Achievement
The Thought Of People In This Day And Age Sitting Down To Listen To A Radio Variety Show On Saturday Evening Is Rather Implausible And Was Even More So In 1974 When We Started “a Prairie Home Companion.” Thank Goodness Minnesota Public Radio Was Too Poor To Afford Good Advice Or The Show Never Would've Got On The Air. We Only Did It Because We Knew It Would Be Fun To Do. It Was A Dumb Idea. I Wish I Knew How To Be That Dumb Again.
Fun
Home
Air
Nothing You Do For Children Is Ever Wasted.
Children
Hovering
Single Parent
For Me, The Monologue Was The Favorite Thing I Had Done In Radio. It Was Based On Writing, But In The End It Was Radio, It Was Standing Up And Leaning Forward Into The Dark And Talking, Letting Words Come Out Of You.
Writing
Dark
Talking
A Minister Has To Be Able To Read A Clock. At Noon, It's Time To Go Home And Turn Up The Pot Roast And Get The Peas Out Of The Freezer.
Home
Able
Noon
Those People On Daytime Tv Talking About How Their Parents Never Gave Them The Positive Feedback They Needed And That's Why They Shot Them- Those Are Not Minnesotans.
Talking
People
Parent
The Problem With Paradise Is That It's Temporary: You Don't Belong Here And The Neighbors Are Nobody You Care To Know, So It's Only Blissful For A Week Or So.
Care
Paradise
Problem
I Think The Most Un-american Thing You Can Say Is, 'you Can't Say That.'
Thinking
America
History
The Party Of Lincoln And Liberty Was Transmogrified Into The Party Of Hairy-backed Swamp Developers And Corporate Shills, Faith-based Economists, Fundamentalist Bullies With Bibles, Christians Of Convenience, Freelance Racists, Misanthropic Frat Boys, Shrieking Midgets Of Am Radio, Tax Cheats, Nihilists In Golf Pants, Brownshirts In Pinstripes, Sweatshop Tycoons. ... Republicans: The No. 1 Reason The Rest Of The World Thinks We're Deaf, Dumb, And Dangerous.
Christian
Party
Golf
The Funniest Line In English Is 'get It?' When You Say That, Everyone Chortles.
Funny
Lines
You'd Learn More About The World By Lying On The Couch And Drinking Gin Out Of A Bottle Than By Watching The News.
Lying
Drinking
News
A Good Newspaper Is Never Nearly Good Enough But A Lousy Newspaper Is A Joy Forever.
Joy
Forever
Journalism
Intelligence Is Like Four-wheel Drive. It Only Allows You To Get Stuck In More Remote Places.
Humor
Intelligent
Four
As For Family Values, They Are Whatever They Are - Some Families Are Tight, Others Are Blown Away Like Dandelion Puffs. A Main Value In Minnesota Is Still: Don't Waste My Time, Don't B.s. Me, I Wasn't Born Yesterday.
Yesterday
Puff
Minnesota
Don't Pour The Oil Directly Into My Navel, Pour It On My Sternum And Let It Run Down Into My Navel, You Ignorant Peasant.
Running
Oil
Ignorant
When It Comes To Finding Available Men In Minnesota, The Odds Are Good, But The Goods Are Odd.
Men
Odds
Minnesota
People Do What They Are Told Not To Do. It Happens Time And Time Again. Here On The Frozen Tundra, It Is Known As The Tongue On The Frozen Pump Handle Principle.
People
Principles
Frozen
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