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About this quote

What does it mean?
Kipling calls on the British to take responsibility for ruling and serving other peoples abroad.
In plain terms
Send your best to serve and rule others abroad.
What can you take from it?
Leadership requires service to others.

Where it applies

  • colonial discussion
  • leadership
  • policy

Putting it to work

  • serve others
  • take responsibility
  • lead with duty

Questions to consider

  • Who should lead whom?
  • What is duty?

Another view

The perspective assumes superiority and ignores local voices.

More from Rudyard Kipling

  1. 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 gate…

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  2. 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.

    Permalink to quote #108
  3. 'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse - soldier an' sailor too.

    Permalink to quote #105

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