April 21, 1828

Hippolyte Taine (April 21, 1828 to March 5, 1893) was an historian and critic. He wrote a History of English Literature, (1908 is the earliest translation into English I notice) and many other books, including on art as well as history. He is less celebrated today, but his excellent writing still shines. .

In his History of the French Revolution (1897) he wrote:

Some of the ... [revolutionary leaders] are shrewd Politicians whose sole object is to furnish the public with words instead of things; others, ordinary scribblers of abstractions, or even ignoramuses, and unable to distinguish words from things, imagine that they are framing laws by stringing together a lot of phrases.

We see here that the memory of philosophical distinctions had not in Taine's time been so completely forgotten as such critical thinking is now.I can imagine how surprising it must have been to reflect on the power of words like "Liberte" when one could oneself glimpse how empty they were. So perhaps it is true that Taine actually said, as he is supposed to have done, 

"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats in infinitely superior." 

I am afraid that reflects on philosophers, those "ordinary scribblers of abstractions" not on any feline talent.

Here is another example of his writing, which even in translation, which is all I have, reveals his powers.
From: Italy: Florence and Venice,(1869) translated by John Durand, we have Taine's descriptions of one of those  paintings which depict the the Last Judgment (the 14th century The Triumph of Death, by Orcagna):

This is universal destruction, a yawning abyss into which all, each in turn, are to be confusedly ingulphed. Queens, kings, popes and archbishops with their ministers and their crowns lie in heaps, and their souls, in the shape of nude infants, issue from their bodies to take their place in the terrible eternity. Some are welcomed by angels, but the greater number are seized by demons, hideous and base figures, with bodies of goats and toads, and with bats' ears and the jaws and claws of cats—a grotesque pack gambolling and capering around their quarry: a singular commingling of dramatic passion, morbid philosophy, accurate observation, awkward triviality and picturesque impotence.

Picturesque impotence: Not such a good place for philosophers to be.