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About this quote

What does it mean?
Cities and powers rise and fall like flowers, only to be replaced.
In plain terms
Empires last a while then die, but new ones come later.
What can you take from it?
Human institutions are temporary; expect them to cycle.

Where it applies

  • history lessons
  • philosophy
  • organizational change

Putting it to work

  • historical writing
  • management philosophy

Questions to consider

  • What outlasts power?
  • Why do empires fall?

Another view

It implies a natural order that ignores human agency in collapse.

More from Rudyard Kipling

  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.

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  2. 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, m…

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

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