Quotes by Rudyard Kipling
Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Rudyard Kipling. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( RUD-yərd; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work.
Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story. His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and luminous narrative gift."Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers. Henry James said "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood, but declined both. Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets' Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey.
Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed with the political and social climate of the age. The contrasting views of him continued for much of the 20th century. The White Man's Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands (1899) is a poem about the Philippine–American War (1899–1902), which exhorts the United States to assume colonial control of the Filipino people and their country. Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote:"[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with."
Any fool can waste, any fool can muddle, but it takes something of a man to save, and the more he saves the more of a man does it make of him.
We had a kettle; we let it leak: Our not repairing made it worse. We haven't had any tea for a week… The bottom is out of the Universe.
Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark-- Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk; Laces for a lady, letters for a spy, Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
A fool there was and he made his prayer (Even as you and I!) To a rag and a bone and hank of hair (We called her the woman who did not care) But the fool he called her his lady fair-- (Even as you and I!).
As swiftly as a reach of still water is crisped by the wind, the rock-strewn ridges and scrub-topped hills were troubled and alive with armed men.
By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail. As the sheep that graze behind us so we know them where they hail.
But, in the valley of the Gauri, men Beneath the shadow of the big new dam, Relate a foolish legend of the flood, Accounting for the little loss of life.
An ijjit grinnin' in a dream -- for shells an' parrakeets, An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish stuffed an' dried -- Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put overside.
Badly-treated children have a clear notion of what they are likely to get if they betray the secrets of a prison-house before they are clear of it.
Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.
His line was the jocundly-sentimental Wardour Street brand of adventure, told in a style that exactly met, but never exceeded, every expectation.
There aren't twelve-hundred people in the world who understand pictures. The others pretend and don't care.
Let all who build beware The load, the shock, the pressure Material can bear. So, when the buckled girder Lets down the grinding span, The blame of loss, or murder, Is laid upon the man. Not on the Stuff -- the Man!
Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep... For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that an' Chuck him out, the brute! But it's Saviour of his country, when the guns begins to shoot!
For agony and spoil
Of nations beat to dust,
For poisoned air and tortured soil
And cold, commanded lust,
And every secret woe
The shuddering waters saw--
Willed and fulfilled by high and low--
Let them relearn the Law.
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.
Let each man be judged by his deeds, I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I willed.
They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods.
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.
One man in a thousand, Solomon says. Will stick more close than a brother. And it's worth while seeking him half your days If you find him before the other. -- -The Thousandth Man.
Ship me somewhere east of Suez,
where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments
an' a man can raise a thirst.
The world is very lovely, and it's very horrible -- and it doesn't care about your life or mine or anything else.
All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!
Also, we will make promise. So long as The Blood endures, I shall know that your good is mine: ye shall feel that my strength is yours: In the day of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all, That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa-aa-aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!
You perceive, do you not, that our national fairy tales reflect the inmost desires of the Briton and the Gaul?
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins, when all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins.
If England was what England seems,
An not the England of our dreams,
But only putty, brass, an' paint,
'Ow quick we'd chuck 'er! But she ain't!
You may talk o' gin and beer When you're quartered safe out 'ere, An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it; But when it comes to slaughter You will do your work on water, An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:-
'Though we know we should defeat you,
we have not the time to meet you,
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.'
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.
I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
The deaths ye died I have watched beside
And the lives ye led were mine.
This is a brief life, but in its brevity it offers us some splendid moments, some meaningful adventures.
It is not any common earth,
Water or wood or air,
But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye
That you and I will fare.
You sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces over all the mean worry of housekeeping.
But till we are built like angels, with hammer and chisel and pen, we will work for ourself and a woman, forever and ever, Amen.
When man has come to the Turnstiles of Night, all the creeds in the world seem to him wonderfully alike and colorless.
On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer; China 'crost the Bay!
Not getting what you want either means you don't want it enough, or you have been dealing too long with the price you have to pay.
At two o'clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen, You will hear the feet of the Wind that is going to call the sun. And the trees in the Shadow rustle and the trees in the moonlight glisten, And though it is deep, dark night, you feel that the night is done.
Body and spirit I surrendered whole To harsh instructors and received a soul... If mortal man could change me through and through From all I was What may the God not do?
We are dead to love and honor We are lost to hope and truth We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung And the measure of our horror is the measure of our youth God help us for we knew the worst too young!
Our hearts where they rocked our cradle, Our love where we spent our toil, And our faith, and our hope, and our honor, We pledge to our native soil. God gave all men all earth to love, But since our hearts are small, Ordained for each one spot should prove Beloved over all.
There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and woman to fill our day; But 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.
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!
All things considered, there are only two kinds of men in the world: those that stay at home and those that do not.
Like the destroyer, the submarine has created its own type of officer and man with language and traditions apart from the rest of the service, and yet at the heart unchangingly of the Service.
The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so! To my own Gods I go. It may be they shall give me greater ease than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.
The American does not drink at meals as a sensible man should. Indeed, he has no meals. He stuffs for ten minutes thrice a day.
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.
Too much work and too much energy kill a man just as effectively as too much assorted vice or too much drink.
When the Man waked up he said, 'What is Wild Dog doing here?' And the Woman said, 'His name is not Wild Dog any more, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always.'
Take up the White Man's burden -- send forth the best ye breed -- go, bind your sons to exile to serve your captives need.
No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be. Not all the books on all the shelves -- but what the teachers are themselves.
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.
Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,
But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.
One half of my head, from the top of my skull to the cleft of my jaw, hammers, bangs, sizzles while the other half, serene and content, looks on at the agony next door.
War is an ill thing, as I surely know. But 'twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain.
If you hit a pony over the nose at the outset of your acquaintance, he may not love you but he will take a deep interest in your movements ever afterwards.
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.
For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, they arrive at their conclusions, largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; but sometimes in a smoking room, one learns why things were done.
There rise her timeless capitals of empires daily born, whose plinths are laid at midnight and whose streets are packed at morn; and here come tired youths and maids that feign to love or sin in tones like rusty razor blades to tunes like smitten tin.
We never pay anyone Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!
If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting ... if you can dream, and not make dreams your master; if you can think, and not make thoughts your aim; if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same; ... yours is the earth and everything that's in it.
Call a truce, then, to our labors -- let us feast with friends and neighbors, and be merry as the custom of our caste; for if ''faint and forced the laughter,'' and if sadness follow after, we are richer by one mocking Christmas past.
The tumalt and shouting dies, The captains and the kings depart. Still stands thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heat. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget.
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing 'Oh how wonderful' and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out, and start their working lives
By grubbing weeds from garden paths with broken dinner knives.
When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew!
They talk o' rich folks bein' stuck up and genteel, but for iron-clad pride o' respectability there's nowt like poor chapel folk. Why, 'tis as cold as the wind on Greenhow Hill -- aye, and colder, too, for 'twill never change.
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden, You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.
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!
O it's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and Tommy 'ow's your soul But it's thin red line of heroes when the drums begin to roll.
The 'eathen in 'is blindness must end where 'e began. But the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man!
And the end of the fight is tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, and the epitaph drear, A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees, So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too!
And burdened Gentile o'er the main,
Must bear the weight of Israel's hate
Because he is not brought again
In triumph to Jerusalem.
Yet there be certain times in a young man's life, when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the more sorrowful state of manhood.
If you don't get what you want, it's a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or that you tried to bargain over the price.
Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established.
I have struck a city -- a real city -- and they call it Chicago... I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.
If I were dammed of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole, mother o' mine o mother o' mine.
San Francisco is a mad city -- inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty.
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.
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves 'It's pretty, but is it Art?'
