November 25, 1880

Leonard Woolf , an English man of letters, was a cat lover, according to his biographer Victoria Glendinning, In Leonard Woolf: A Biography (2006), she quotes his ideas on training animals:

When he first began to keep animals, he admitted in Principia Politica, he controlled them by means of fear, force, and [with dogs] "a sense of sin." But he learned that an animal made civilized by means of force and pain, is only superficially civilized...."The other way of training animals is through their potential affection."You must never hurt them or use unnecessary force upon them. You must establish from the earliest moment, the things which....they are never under any circumstances to do; and you must prevent them doing these things with the utmost gentleness and patience."

Leonard Woolf (November 25, 1880 to August 14, 1969), in addition to his position in the cultural life of 20th century Britain, is said by Encyclopedia Britannica to have "helped to lay the foundations of the policy of the League of Nations and the United Nations and of the welfare state."