126 Rudyard Kipling Quotes

Rudyard Kipling quotes

1. She has no strong white arms to fold you, But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you - Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

2. Cities and Thrones and Powers, Stand in Time's eye, Almost as long as flowers, Which daily die: But, as new buds put forth To glad new men, Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth, The Cities rise again.

3. Five and twenty ponies Trotting through the dark- Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk. Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie - Watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by!

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

5. 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.

6. I have written the tale of our life For a sheltered people's mirth, In jesting guise - but ye are wise, And ye know what the jest is worth.

7. A fool there was and he made his prayer (Even as you and I!) To a rag and a bone and a 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!)

8. 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.

9. The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road Preaches contentment to that toad.

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

11. God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle line, Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine - Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget - lest we forget!

12. The tumult and the shouting dies; The Captains and the Kings depart; Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart.

13. If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, Such boastings as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law - Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget - lest we forget!

14. For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

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

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

17. 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.

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

19. Everyone is more or less mad on one point.

20. And oft-times cometh our wise Lord God, master of every trade, And tells them tales of His daily toil, of Edens newly made; And they rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid.

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

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

23. We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints, Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints.

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you! So when we take tea with a few guns, o' course you will know what to do - hoo! hoo! Jest send in your Chief an' surrender it's worse if you fights or you runs: You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves, but you can't get away from the guns!

27. 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.

28. So I'll meet 'im later on At the place where 'e is gone - Where it's always double drill and no canteen. 'E'll be squattin' on the coals Givin' drink to poor damned souls, An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din! Yes, Din! Din! Din! You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din! Though I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

29. 'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead? She 'as ships on the foam - she 'as millions at 'ome, An' she pays us poor beggars in red.

30. When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck, Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck, Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck And march to your front like a soldier. Front, front, front like a soldier...

31. If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white, Remember it's ruin to run from a fight: So take open order, lie down, and sit tight, And wait for supports like a soldier. Wait, wait, wait like a soldier...

32. 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 An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, So-oldier of the Queen!

33. By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea, There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: 'Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!'

34. 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.

35. To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned, To my brethren in their sorrow overseas, Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed, And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.

36. 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!

37. We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth, We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung, And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth. God help us, for we knew the worst too young!

38. For to admire an' for to see, For to be'old this world so wide - It never done no good to me, But I can't drop it if I tried!

39. '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.

40. We be of one blood, ye and I.

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

42. Now this is the Law of the Jungle - as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

43. For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

44. 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.

45. 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!

46. When the cabin port-holes are dark and green Because of the seas outside; When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between) And the steward falls into the soup-tureen, And the trunks begin to slide; When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap, And Mummy tells you to let her sleep, And you aren't waked or washed or dressed, Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed) You're 'Fifty North and Forty West!'

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

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

49. Take of English earth as much As either hand may rightly clutch. In the taking of it breathe Prayer for all who lie beneath.

50. 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; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.

51. 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 imposters just the same

52. If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss.

53. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

54. In the flush of the hot June prime, O'ersleek flood-tides afire, I hear him hurry the chime To the bidding of checked Desire; Till the sweated ringers tire And the wild bob-majors die. Could I wait for my turn in the godly choir? (Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!

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

56. Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

57. 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.

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

59. For all we have and are, For all our children's fate, Stand up and take the war. The Hun is at the gate!

60. No easy hope or lies Shall bring us to our goal, But iron sacrifice Of body, will, and soul. There is but one task for all - One life for each to give. What stands if Freedom fall? Who dies if England live?

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

62. As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

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

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

65. A people always ends by resembling its shadow.

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

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

68. There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, Or the way of a man with a maid; But the fairest way to me is a ship's upon the sea In the heel of the North-East Trade.

69. 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!

70. Father, Mother, and Me, Sister and Auntie say All the people like us are We, And every one else is They.

71. We and They, st. 1

72. 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!

73. But remember, please, the Law by which we live, We are not built to comprehend a lie, We can neither love nor pity nor forgive, If you make a slip in handling us you die! We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings - Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods! - Our touch can alter all created things, We are everything on earth - except The Gods!

74. Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes, It will vanish and the stars will shine again, Because, for all our power and weight and size, We are nothing more than children of your brain!

75. 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 hired youths and maids that feign to love or sin In tones like rusty razor-blades to tunes like smitten tin.

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

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

78. 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, though they come from the ends of the earth!

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

80. When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould; 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?'

81. 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?'

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

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

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

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

86. 'Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high 'The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die - 'The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!' And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.

87. 'Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed - go back with an open eye, 'And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die: 'That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one - 'And the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!'

88. If I were damned of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine.

89. And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: 'A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.'

90. 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!

91. And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!

92. Ever the wide world over, lass, Ever the trail held true, Over the world and under the world, And back at the last to you.

93. 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.

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

95. When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre, He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea; An' what he thought 'e might require, 'E went an' took - the same as me!

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

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

98. The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds - The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e gives 'er all she needs; But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun', They're just the same as you an' me a-plyin' up an' down!

99. I've taken my fun where I've found it; I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time; I've 'ad my pickin' o' sweet'earts, An' four o' the lot was prime. One was an 'arf-caste widow, One was a woman at Prome, One was the wife of a jemadar-sais, An' one is a girl at 'ome.

100. 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.

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

102. For 'im that doth not work must surely die; But that's no reason man should labour all 'Is life on one same shift - life's none so long.

103. It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world, Which you can read and care for just so long, But presently you feel that you will die Unless you get the page you're readin' done, An' turn another - likely not so good; But what you're after is to turn 'em all.

104. We have fed our sea for a thousand years And she calls us, still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead.

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

106. A Nation spoke to a Nation, A Queen sent word to a Throne: 'Daughter am I in my mother's house, But mistress in my own. The gates are mine to open, As the gates are mine to close, And I set my house in order,' Said our Lady of the Snows.

107. Take up the White Man's burden - Send forth the best ye breed - Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need.

108. 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.

109. And what did ye look they should compass? Warcraft learned in a breath, Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death? So? And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize? How are the beasts more worthy than the souls, your sacrifice? But ye said, 'Their valour shall show them'; but ye said, 'The end is close.' And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes: And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride, Ere - ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride! Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.

110. Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end; Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise, Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice.

111. God gave all men all earth to love, But since our hearts are small, Ordained for each one spot should prove Beloved over all.

112. 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?

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

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

115. 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.

116. 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.

1. 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.

2. Believe the best of everybody.

3. Adam was a gardener, and God, who made him, sees that half of all good gardening is done upon the knees.

4. 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.

5. If you want something and don't get it, there are only two reasons. You either really didn't want it, or you tried to bargain over the price.

6. Never look backwards or you'll fall down the stairs.

7. 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.

8. It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening.

9. I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!

10. There aren't twelve-hundred people in the world who understand pictures. The others pretend and don't care.