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The naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn't just one of your holiday games. You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter. When I tell you a cat must have three different names.
T. S. Eliot
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Naming cats symbolizes the complexity of identity and individuality.

In this quote, T. S. Eliot illustrates the intricate nature of naming and identity through the metaphor of cats. He suggests that a name is more than a label; it reflects the multifaceted personality and essence of the individual, highlighting the importance of recognizing different aspects of one's character.

Themes

CatsIdentityNamesComplexityIndividuality

In practice

Example use cases

Using this quote in a discussion about the importance of names in literature.

More from T. S. Eliot

There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
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Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.
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I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.
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If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
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For I have known them all already, known them all— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
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In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
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