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Who really said it

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this

Not Terry Pratchett — an anonymous quip Anonymous (credited to Terry Pratchett) compact quip circulating by 1991; pinned firmly on Pratchett by 2004
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

No book, article or interview by Terry Pratchett is known to contain this line. Quote Investigator ↗ finds the short quip circulating anonymously by 1991. Pratchett’s name was only guessed at in 1998 and 2002, and the earliest unequivocal ascription to him that QI found is in the 2004 quotation book The Guide to Laughing at Family. The idea itself is older: Violet Hunt had it in 1905 and P. G. Wodehouse in 1933.

Last verified 3 Nov 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this” Anonymous; often misattributed to Terry Pratchett (no source in his works, per Quote Investigator, 2024)

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of power and time. Theme: "In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

Where the line actually comes from

Exact wording
The Guide to Laughing at Family (2004), credited to Pratchett
Compact quip
anonymous on Usenet, April 1991
Oldest form of the idea
Violet Hunt, The Cat (1905)
In Pratchett’s own works
not found

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

This is the modern wording as it appears in Quote Investigator’s chronology for 2004. Older forms say “Thousands of years ago” or “The Egyptians worshipped cats” and end with “never forgotten.” Wikiquote spells it “worshiped.”

Quote Investigator: full chronology of the cat quip

How we verified this

  • 1905: in Violet Hunt’s The Cat, narrated by a cat, the mother cat teaches that cats go back “to the days beyond the dawn of history, when cats were worshipped” and that “we must never forget that great fact” (p. 51, Internet Archive ↗).
  • 1933: P. G. Wodehouse’s Mulliner Nights says that cats “have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods” (Internet Archive ↗).
  • 1991–2004: the compact quip shows up anonymously on Usenet (1991), in a Hallmark book (1992) and in newspapers (1998). Usenet posters guess at Pratchett in 1998 and 2002, and a 2004 quotation book is the first to credit him without reservation, per Quote Investigator ↗.
  • Wikiquote lists the line on its Terry Pratchett page ↗ but cites only later books that quote it (2007, 2009). A 2022 note on its talk page ↗ reports that it could not be found in The Unadulterated Cat or Pyramids and asks for a primary source.

This exact wording has no known author. It surfaces anonymously in the 1990s and is credited to Pratchett without a source, so there is no work or author whose copyright status could honestly be stated. The older passages by Violet Hunt (1905) and P. G. Wodehouse (1933) are different sentences, not the source of this line.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

How Terry Pratchett got the credit

A cat joke with no known author drifted onto a writer known for cat jokes. The record shows the quip in anonymous circulation for years before anyone put Pratchett’s name on it, and even then only as a guess at first.

Terry Pratchett no source in his works

Pratchett’s name first comes up as a guess in Usenet threads (“It sounds Pratchett-ish?” in 1998, “Terry Pratchett, iirc” in 2002). The earliest unequivocal ascription is a 2004 quotation book, and QI has found “no substantive evidence” that he created the joke, per Quote Investigator ↗.

Dusty Rainbolt and other cat books secondary, no citation

Wikiquote’s only citations for the Pratchett credit are Ghost Cats (2007) by Dusty Rainbolt and a 2009 Chicken Soup for the Soul volume. Both are books quoting the line, not Pratchett’s own writing (Wikiquote ↗).

P. G. Wodehouse related idea, different words

In 1933 Wodehouse wrote that cats “have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods” (Mulliner Nights ↗). It is the same joke, but not this wording.

Violet Hunt 1905

Her cat narrator is taught that cats go back to the days “when cats were worshipped” and that “we must never forget that great fact.” QI calls this the earliest match (The Cat, p. 51 ↗).

The honest answer is anonymous. Quote Investigator traces the idea to Violet Hunt (1905) and Wodehouse (1933) and the compact quip to anonymous use by 1991, and suggests the Pratchett credit came about in two steps: a tentative guess first, then a firm ascription by 2004 (Quote Investigator ↗).

Context

Why this one stuck to Pratchett

Pratchett wrote plenty of real cat humor. In Lords and Ladies a character says that “if cats looked like frogs we’d realise what nasty, cruel little bastards they are,” and the narrator of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents observes that cats “know” they are lords of creation. Quote Investigator suggests lines like these probably made the misattribution easy to believe.

The pattern is a familiar one. Usenet posters half-remembered the line as “Pratchett-ish,” a quotation book then printed his name without hedging, and calendars, cat anthologies and even a 2011 Pratchett biography repeated it with no citation.

QI has found no substantive evidence that Terry Pratchett created this joke.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power Time

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quip Origin: In Ancient Times Cats Were Worshipped As Godsquoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative chronology from 1905 to 2011, concluding there is no substantive evidence that Pratchett wrote it.
ADS-L: "Probably not Terry Pratchett"listserv.linguistlist.org

Garson O’Toole’s 2024 post to the American Dialect Society list setting out the 1991–2004 evidence.
Terry Pratchett on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Lists the line with only secondary citations (Ghost Cats, 2007; Chicken Soup for the Soul, 2009).
Talk:Terry Pratchett — "Cats"en.wikiquote.org

A 2022 editor note that all the sources are secondary and the line was not found in Pratchett’s cat book or Pyramids.
Violet Hunt, The Cat (1905)archive.org

Full scan of the earliest known version of the idea, on page 51.
P. G. Wodehouse, Mulliner Nightsarchive.org

Scan of the 1933 collection with Wodehouse’s “worshipped as gods” line about cats.

The name on the quote

Terry Pratchett — credited, not the author

Terry Pratchett

1948–2015 · English fantasy author and satirist, creator of Discworld

Sir Terry Pratchett was an English author, humorist and satirist, best known for the Discworld series of 41 comic fantasy novels (1983–2015) and for Good Omens (1990), which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman. He really did write sharp jokes about cats, in Lords and Ladies and The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents for example. That made him a believable home for a stray cat quip, but the evidence does not show that he wrote this one.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Anonymous by 1991; first firmly credited to Pratchett in 2004, per Quote Investigator

Garson O’Toole (Quote Investigator), “Quip Origin: In Ancient Times Cats Were Worshipped As Gods; They Have Not Forgotten This,” QuoteInvestigator.com, August 11, 2024 (updated June 3, 2026). Traces the idea to Violet Hunt, The Cat (1905), and P. G. Wodehouse, Mulliner Nights (1933), and the compact quip to anonymous use by 1991. The earliest unequivocal ascription to Terry Pratchett is in The Guide to Laughing at Family (2004).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this’?” Last verified 3 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/in-ancient-times-cats-were-worshipped-as-gods-they-have-not/

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