Rudyard Kipling Quotes

Only the keeper sees
that,where the ring-dove broods
and the badgers roll at ease,
there was once a road through the woods

He who can reach a child's heart can reach the worlds heart.

Ship me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raisea thirst.

There are few things sweeter in this world than the guileless, hotheaded,
intemperate, open admiration of a junior. Even a woman in
her blindest devotion does not fall into the gait of the man she
adores, tilt her bonnet to the angle at which he wears his hat, or
interlard her speech with his pet oaths.

was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. "Augrh!" said Father Wolf. "It is time to hunt again." He was going to spring down hill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: "Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children that they may never forget the hungry in this world." It was the jackal - Tabaqui, the Dish-licker - and the wolves of India

THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD" "Or ever the knightly years were gone With the old world to the grave, I was a king in Babylon And you were a Christian slave," - W.E. Henley. His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a widow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the City every day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and suffered from aspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon where the marker called him by his given name, and he called the marker "Bullseyes." Charlie explained, a little nervously, that he had only come to the place to look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheap amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie should go back to his mother.

I wasted my substance, I know I did, on riotous living, so I did, but there's nothing on record to show I did more than my betters have done.

If the aunt of the vicar has never touched liquor, watch out when she finds the Champagne.

It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to his hand on the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresail scythed back and forth against the blue sky.

For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle from that day on. But he was not always alone, because years afterward he became a man and married.

But that is a story for grown-ups.

For it's "guns this" and "guns that," and "chuck 'em out, the brutes," But they're the "Savior of our loved ones" when the thugs begin to loot.

Words are the most powerful drug used by humankind.

The tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes, like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.

You must learn to forgive a man when he's in love. He's always a nuisance.

I am by nature a dealer in words, and words are the most powerful drug known to humanity.

Like Princes crowned they bore them
Like Demi-Gods they wrought,
When the New World lay before them
In headlong fact and thought.
Fate and their foemen proved them
Above all meed of praise,
And Gloriana loved them,
And Shakespeare wrote them plays!
...
Now Valour, Youth, and Life's delight break forth
In flames of wondrous deed, and thought sublime
Lightly to mould new worlds or lightly loose
Words that shall shake and shape all after-time!
Giants with giants, wits with wits engage,
And England-England-England takes the breath
Of morning, body and soul, till the great Age
Fulfills in one great chord:
Elizabeth!

He will kill mice and he will be kind to babies ... but when the moon gets up and the night comes, he is the Cat that Walks by Himself.

It isn't what you say so much.
It's what you mean when you say it.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave Them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us, and delivered us, bound, to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!

One cannot resist the lure of Africa.

For the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one.

Hearts are like horses. They come and they go against bit or spur.

When a crew and a captain understand each other to the core, it takes a gale, and more than a gale, to put their ship ashore.

A tale from which pieces have been raked out is like a fire that has been poked. One does not know the operation has been performed, but everyone feels the effect.

If a man brings a good mind to what he reads he may become, as it were, the spiritual descendant to some extent of great men, and this link, this spiritual hereditary tie, may help to just kick the beam in the right direction at a vital crisis; or may keep him from drifting through the long slack times when, so to speak, we are only fielding and no balls are coming our way.

And that is called paying the Dane-geld; but we've proved it again and again, that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld you never get rid of the Dane.

The python dropped his head lightly for a moment on Mowgli's shoulders. "A brave heart and a courteous tongue," said he. "They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling. But now go hence quickly with thy friends. Go and sleep, for the moon sets and what follows it is not well that thou shouldst see.

An increasing cackle of complaints, orders, and jests, and what to a European would have been bad language, came from behind the curtains. Here was evidently a woman used to command.

Humble because of knowledge; mighty by sacrifice.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man-
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:-
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins"
From "The Gods of the Copybook Headings

It's always best to tell the truth.

Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,
But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.

Roman Centurion's Song"

LEGATE, I had the news last night - my cohort ordered home
By ships to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.
I've marched the companies aboard, the arms are stowed below:
Now let another take my sword. Command me not to go!

I've served in Britain forty years, from Vectis to the Wall,
I have none other home than this, nor any life at all.
Last night I did not understand, but, now the hour draws near
That calls me to my native land, I feel that land is here.

Here where men say my name was made, here where my work was done;
Here where my dearest dead are laid - my wife - my wife and son;
Here where time, custom, grief and toil, age, memory, service, love,
Have rooted me in British soil. Ah, how can I remove?

For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and fields suffice.
What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful Northern skies,
Black with December snows unshed or pearled with August haze -
The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June's long-lighted days?

You'll follow widening Rhodanus till vine and olive lean
Aslant before the sunny breeze that sweeps Nemausus clean
To Arelate's triple gate; but let me linger on,
Here where our stiff-necked British oaks confront Euroclydon!

You'll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending pines
Where, blue as any peacock's ne

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How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is eternally pestered by women? There was that girl at the Akrola by the Ford; and there was the scullion's wife behind the dovecote
not counting the others
and now comes this one! When I was a child it was well enough, but now I am a man and they will not regard me as a man. Walnuts indeed! Ho! Ho! It is almonds in the Plains!

His nickname through all the wards was ' Little Friend of all the World'; and very often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion. It was intrigue, of course.

No one accuses the gunner of maudlin affection for anything except his beasts and his weapons. He serves as least three jealous gods-his horse and all its sadlery and harness; his gun, whose least detail of efficiency is more important than men's lives; and, when these have been attended to, the never-ending mystery of his art commands him.

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Who has delivered us, who? Tell me his nest and his name. Rikki, the valiant, the true, Tikki, with eyeballs of flame, Rikk-tikki-tikki, the ivory-fanged, the hunter with eyeballs of flame!

He sat in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammeh, on her old platform, opposite the old Ajaib gher, the Wonder House, as the natives called the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot.

He spread out his hood more than ever, and Rikki-tikki saw the spectacle-mark on the back of it that looks exactly like the eye part of a hook-and-eye fastening. He was afraid for the minute, but it is impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before, his mother had fed him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose's business in life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too and, at the bottom of his cold heart, he was afraid.

Four things greater than all things are Women and horses and power and War.

Or ever the knightly years were gone With the old world to the grave,

This was to me a far more terrible loss than the two that I had suffered before. For though, Lord help me, I had travelled far enough from all paths of decent or godly living, yet there was in me, though I myself write it, a certain goodness of heart which, when I was sober (or sick) made me very sorry of all that I had done before the fit came on me. And this I lost wholly: having in place thereof another deadly coldness at the heart. I am not, as I have before said, ready with my pen, so I fear that what I have just written may not be readily understood.

Do not weep; for, look you, all Desire is Illusion and a new binding upon the. wheel.

HEAR and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild - as wild as wild could be - and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had fired both barrels of a shotgun into Nag just behind the hood.

Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful person till he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental he is charming. It is only when he insists on being treated as the most easterly of western peoples instead of the most westerly of easterns that he becomes a racial anomaly extremely difficult to handle.

The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow.

Hunting Verse - Feet that make no noise; eyes that can see in the dark; ears that can hear the winds in their lairs, and sharp white teeth, all

till dawn are we.

Remember, Bagheera loved thee," he cried, and bounded away. At the foot of the hill he cried again long and loud, "Good hunting on a new trail, Master of the Jungle! Remember, Bagheera loved thee.

A man's mind is wont to tell him more than seven watchmen sitting in a tower.

I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our Pack or in my time," said Father Wolf. "He is altogether without hair, and I could kill him with a touch of my foot. But see, he looks up and is not afraid.

A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.

There's a Legion that never was 'listed, That carries no colours or crest, But, split in a thousand detachments, Is breaking the road for the rest.

They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikki-tikki liked it immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the veranda and sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots. Then he felt better.

Funny how the new things are the old things.

The Power of the Dog
by Rudyard Kipling


There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find--it's your own affair--
But ... you've given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:

You perceive, do you not, that our national fairy tales reflect the inmost desires of the Briton and the Gaul?

The camel's hump is an ugly lump,
Which well you might see at the zoo.
But uglier yet is the hump we get,
For having to little to do.

Dolphin-jump in the air

We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.

Each dog barks in his own yard!

For a wolf, no," said Tabaqui, "but for so mean a person as myself a dry bone is a good feast. Who are we, the Gidur-log [the jackal people], to pick and choose?" He scuttled to the back of the cave, where he found the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat cracking the end merrily.

The American has no language, he has a dialect, slang, provincialism, accent and so forth

Bagheera to see if the Panther was angry too, and Bagheera's eyes were as hard as jade stones. "Thou hast been with the Monkey People
the gray apes
the people without a law
the eaters of everything. That is great shame." "When Baloo hurt my head," said Mowgli (he was still on his back), "I went away, and the gray

Many religious people are deeply suspicious. They seem, for purely religious purposes, of course, to know more about iniquity than the unregenerate.

On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer; China 'crost the Bay!

If you give someone more than they can do, they will do it. If you give them only what they can do, they will do nothing.

It is not a good fancy,' said the llama. 'What profit to kill men?'
Very little - as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers.

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice peg, We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg. We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart, But the devil whoops, as he whooped of old; It's clever, but is it art?

We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.

There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this.

Of all the trees that grow so fair Old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the Sun
Than Oak, and Ash and Thorn.

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears.

Darzee was a feather-brained little fellow who could never hold more than one idea at a time in his head.

We be of one blood, ye and I

There are nine-and-sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right.

He will be our friend for always and always and always.

Anything from Kipling

Respect the aged!"

"It was a thick voice - a muddy voice that would have made you shudder - a voice like something soft breaking in two.

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This is the great world, and I am only Kim. Who is Kim?' He considered his own identity, a thing he had never done before, till his head swam. He was one insignificant person in all this roaring whirl of India, going southward to he knew not what fate.

The others down by the melon bed. Nagaina spun clear round,

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.

Mad! Quite mad!' said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting strange beasts. 'Beetle reads an ass called Brownin', and M'Turk reads an ass called Ruskin; and-'
'Ruskin isn't an ass,' said M'Turk. 'He's almost as good as the Opium-Eater. He says we're "children of noble races, trained by surrounding art." That means me, and the way I decorated the study when you two badgers would have stuck up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a noble race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading or I'll shove a pilchard down your neck!

They are fools who kiss and tell'
Wisely has the poet sung.
Man may hold all sorts of posts
If he'll only hold his tongue.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run- Yours is the Earth and everything in it ...

When young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion and despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge. Though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach faith where no faith was.

To each his own fear';

Men who are accustomed to eat at tiny tables in howling gales have curiously neat and finished manners;

Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro
And what should they know of England who only England know?
The English Flag, Stanza 1 (1891)

Like everything else in the world, it is one man's work.

I have stated it plain, an' my argument's thus ( It's all one, says the Sapper) There's only one Corps which is perfect - that's us; An' they call us Her Majesty's Engineers, With the rank and pay of a Sapper!

Across a world where all men grieve
And grieving strive the more,
The great days range like tides and leave
Our dead on every shore.

I Keep Six Honest Serving Men ..."

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views;
I know a person small -
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

She sends'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes -
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!

A man-trained boy would have been badly bruised, for the fall was a good fifteen feet, but Mowgli fell as Baloo had taught him to fall, and landed on his feet.