Rudyard Kipling

San Francisco is a mad city - inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty.

— Rudyard Kipling

Buy a pup and your money will buy

— Rudyard Kipling

God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.

— Rudyard Kipling

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

— Rudyard Kipling

A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

— Rudyard Kipling

God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.

— Rudyard Kipling

I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble.

— Rudyard Kipling

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.

— Rudyard Kipling

I've just read that I'm dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers.

— Rudyard Kipling

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

— Rudyard Kipling

I have eaten your bread and salt.And the lives ye led were mine.

— Rudyard Kipling

I have written the tale of our life And ye know what the jest is worth.

— Rudyard Kipling

A fool there was and he made his prayer(Even as you and I!)

— Rudyard Kipling

Call a truce, then, to our labours let us feast with friends and neighbours,We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.

— Rudyard Kipling

The toad beneath the harrow knowsPreaches contentment to that toad.

— Rudyard Kipling

And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

— Rudyard Kipling

A scrimmage in a Border Station—Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

— Rudyard Kipling

God of our fathers, known of old,Lest we forget—lest we forget!

— Rudyard Kipling

The tumult and the shouting dies;Lest we forget—lest we forget!

— Rudyard Kipling

Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone.

— Rudyard Kipling

If, drunk with sight of power, we looseLest we forget—lest we forget!

— Rudyard Kipling

* For heathen heart that puts her trustthy mercy on thy people lord!

— Rudyard Kipling

It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts, such as falling in love at first sight.

— Rudyard Kipling

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool!

— Rudyard Kipling

Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears, and so preparing the way for you later on. Sisters are women first, and sisters afterwards; and you will find that you do yourself harm.

— Rudyard Kipling

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

— Rudyard Kipling

Everyone is more or less mad on one point.

— Rudyard Kipling

He did his best to interest the girl in himself—that is to say, his work—and she, after the manner of women, did her best to appear interested in, what behind his back, she called "Mr. Wressley's Wajahs"; for she lisped very prettily. She did not understand one little thing about them, but she acted as if she did. Men have married on that sort of error before now.

— Rudyard Kipling

She read a little of it. I give her review verbatim:—"Oh, your book? It's all about those how-wid Wajahs. I didn't understand it."

— Rudyard Kipling

East of Suez, some hold, the direct control of Providence ceases; Man being there handed over to the power of the Gods and Devils of Asia, and the Church of England Providence only exercising an occasional and modified supervision in the case of Englishmen.

— Rudyard Kipling

All gods have good points, just as have all priests. Personally, I attach much importance to Hanuman, and am kind to his people—the great gray apes of the hills. One never knows when one may want a friend.

— Rudyard Kipling

'Take your friend away. He has done with Hanuman, but Hanuman has not done with him.'

— Rudyard Kipling

And oft-times cometh our wise Lord God, master of every trade,And they rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid.

— Rudyard Kipling

“What are the bugles blowin' for?” said Files-on-Parade.“To turn you out, to turn you out”, the Colour-Sergeant said.

— Rudyard Kipling

They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away,An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.

— Rudyard Kipling

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

— Rudyard Kipling

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints.

— Rudyard Kipling

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “Chuck him out, the brute!”But it's “Saviour of 'is country” when the guns begin to shoot.

— Rudyard Kipling

So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan;You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man.

— Rudyard Kipling

For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves, but you can't get away from the guns!

— Rudyard Kipling

You may talk o' gin and beerAn' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.

— Rudyard Kipling

So I'll meet 'im later onYou're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

— Rudyard Kipling

'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at WindsorAn' she pays us poor beggars in red.

— Rudyard Kipling

When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,Front, front, front like a soldier...

— Rudyard Kipling

If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,Wait, wait, wait like a soldier...

— Rudyard Kipling

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

— Rudyard Kipling

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,So-oldier of the Queen!

— Rudyard Kipling

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,“Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!”

— Rudyard Kipling

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

— Rudyard Kipling

To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.

— Rudyard Kipling

We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,Baa! Yah! Bah!

— Rudyard Kipling

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,God help us, for we knew the worst too young!

— Rudyard Kipling

For to admire an' for to see,But I can't drop it if I tried!

— Rudyard Kipling

‘There is none like to me!' says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.

— Rudyard Kipling

It's clever, but is it Art?

— Rudyard Kipling

We be of one blood, ye and I.

— Rudyard Kipling

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!This is the way of the Monkey-kind!

— Rudyard Kipling

It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the mongoose family is “Run and find out,” and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose.

— Rudyard Kipling

When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail,Lie down till the leaders have spoken—it may be fair words shall prevail.

— Rudyard Kipling

Now these are the Laws of the jungle, and many and mighty are they;But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is—Obey!

— Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about youAnd yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.

— Rudyard Kipling

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;And treat those two imposters just the same

— Rudyard Kipling

If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss.

— Rudyard Kipling

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

— Rudyard Kipling

We have fed our sea for a thousand yearsBut marks our English dead.

— Rudyard Kipling

They change their skies above them,But not their hearts that roam!

— Rudyard Kipling

The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds—They're just the same as you an' me a-plyin' up an' down!

— Rudyard Kipling

There's a Legion that never was 'listed,Is breaking the road for the rest.

— Rudyard Kipling

But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came,And every single one of them is right!

— Rudyard Kipling

For ‘im that doth not work must surely die;‘Is life on one same shift—life's none so long.

— Rudyard Kipling

It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world,But what you're after is to turn 'em all.

— Rudyard Kipling

Back to the Army again, sergeant,Out o' the cold an' the rain.

— Rudyard Kipling

'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse—soldier an' sailor too.

— Rudyard Kipling

I've taken my fun where I've found it;An' one is a girl at 'ome.

— Rudyard Kipling

When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew!

— Rudyard Kipling

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!

— Rudyard Kipling

When you've shouted "Rule Brittania": when you've sung "God Save the Queen,"For a gentleman in khaki headed South?

— Rudyard Kipling

When the cabin port-holes are dark and greenYou're ‘Fifty North and Forty West!'

— Rudyard Kipling

I keep six honest serving-men:And How and Why and Who.

— Rudyard Kipling

Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful,' and sitting in the shade.

— Rudyard Kipling

I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.

— Rudyard Kipling

She has no strong white arms to fold you,Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

— Rudyard Kipling

Cities and Thrones and Powers,The Cities rise again.

— Rudyard Kipling

There is sorrow enough in the natural way

— Rudyard Kipling

Five and twenty poniesWatch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by!

— Rudyard Kipling

Of all the trees that grow so fair,Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.

— Rudyard Kipling

Take of English earth as muchPrayer for all who lie beneath.

— Rudyard Kipling

If any question why we died,Tell them, because our fathers lied.

— Rudyard Kipling

Body and spirit I surrendered wholeFrom all I was—What may the God not do?

— Rudyard Kipling

This man in his own country prayed we know not to what powers.We pray them to reward him for his bravery in ours.

— Rudyard Kipling

From little towns in a far land we came,And trust the world we won for you to keep.

— Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

— Rudyard Kipling

I could not dig: I dared not rob:Mine angry and defrauded young?

— Rudyard Kipling

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?'

— Rudyard Kipling

But that's another story.

— Rudyard Kipling

Being kissed by a man who didn't wax his moustache was like eating an egg without salt.

— Rudyard Kipling

In the flush of the hot June prime,(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!

— Rudyard Kipling

Men and women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a creditable lie; but the house, which is their temple, cannot say anything save the truth of those who have lived in it.

— Rudyard Kipling

Enough work to do, and strength enough to do the work.

— Rudyard Kipling

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you bewareOf giving your heart to a dog to tear.

— Rudyard Kipling

For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State,But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done.

— Rudyard Kipling

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

— Rudyard Kipling

For all we have and are,The Hun is at the gate!

— Rudyard Kipling

No easy hope or liesWho dies if England live?

— Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

— Rudyard Kipling

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

— Rudyard Kipling

Never again will I spend another winter in this accursed Bucket shop|bucketshop of a refrigerator called England.

— Rudyard Kipling

A people always ends by resembling its shadow.

— Rudyard Kipling

When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey.

— Rudyard Kipling

What is a woman that you forsake her

— Rudyard Kipling

Four things greater than all things are,—Women and Horses and Power and War.

— Rudyard Kipling

Two things greater than all things are,The first is Love, and the second War.

— Rudyard Kipling

There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake,In the heel of the North-East Trade.

— Rudyard Kipling

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him seesFor the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

— Rudyard Kipling

Father, Mother, and Me,And every one else is They.

— Rudyard Kipling

Now I possess and am possessed of the land where I would be,And the curve of half Earth's generous breast shall soothe and ravish me!

— Rudyard Kipling

But remember, please, the Law by which we live,We are everything on earth—except The Gods!

— Rudyard Kipling

Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,We are nothing more than children of your brain!

— Rudyard Kipling

There rise her timeless capitals of Empires daily born,In tones like rusty razor-blades to tunes like smitten tin.

— Rudyard Kipling

Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,He travels the fastest who travels alone.

— Rudyard Kipling

At two o'clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen,

— Rudyard Kipling

More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.

— Rudyard Kipling

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.

— Rudyard Kipling

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

— Rudyard Kipling

For all we take we must pay, but the price is cruel high.

— Rudyard Kipling

When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It's pretty, but is it Art?”

— Rudyard Kipling

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?”

— Rudyard Kipling

Bite on the bullet, old man, and don't let them think you're afraid.

— Rudyard Kipling

San Francisco is a mad city—inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people, whose women are of a remarkable beauty.

— Rudyard Kipling

Asia is not going to be civilised after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.

— Rudyard Kipling

Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro—And what should they know of England who only England know?

— Rudyard Kipling

“Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and highAnd the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.

— Rudyard Kipling

“Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed—go back with an open eye,“And the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!”

— Rudyard Kipling

He travels the fastest who travels alone.

— Rudyard Kipling

If I were damned of body and soul,Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine.

— Rudyard Kipling

Ever the wide world over, lass,And back at the last to you.

— Rudyard Kipling

When next he came to me he was drunk—royally drunk on many poets for the first time revealed to him. His pupils were dilated, his words tumbled over each other, and he wrapped himself in quotations—as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of emperors.

— Rudyard Kipling

We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low.Will you never let us go?

— Rudyard Kipling

When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre,'E went an' took—the same as me!

— Rudyard Kipling

A Nation spoke to a Nation,Said our Lady of the Snows.

— Rudyard Kipling

Take up the White Man's burden—To serve your captives' need.

— Rudyard Kipling

It was our fault, and our very great fault—and now we must turn it to use.We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.

— Rudyard Kipling

“True. True talk,” said Kim solemnly. “Fools speak of a cat when a woman is brought to bed, for instance. I have heard them.”

— Rudyard Kipling

Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end;Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice.

— Rudyard Kipling

God gave all men all earth to love,Belovèd over all.

— Rudyard Kipling

Who hath desired the Sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded—The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?

— Rudyard Kipling

Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!

— Rudyard Kipling

Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again!There's no discharge in the war!

— Rudyard Kipling

That's the secret. 'Tisn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walk down a street.

— Rudyard Kipling

I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all; to men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them.

— Rudyard Kipling

… scandals are only increased by hushing them up.

— Rudyard Kipling

… it's always best to tell the truth.

— Rudyard Kipling

Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.

— Rudyard Kipling