Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Human achievements like smoke or power are transient compared to the enduring nature of human thought and imagination.
In plain terms
Power and technology fade; human minds create the lasting reality.
What can you take from it?
Human thought outlasts physical power or technology.

Where it applies

  • political power
  • technological pride
  • philosophy

Putting it to work

  • value ideas over force
  • recognize human potential

Questions to consider

  • What truly lasts in history?
  • Is power more important than ideas?

Another view

Physical power often dictates immediate outcomes.

More from Rudyard Kipling

  1. 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 …

    Permalink to quote #73
  2. 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 an…

    Permalink to quote #75
  3. 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!

    Permalink to quote #72

Related quotes

  1. That everything great that has ever happened to humanity since the beginning, has begun with a single thought in someone's mind and if anyone of us is capable …

    YanniYanni quote #1
  2. A little rule, a little sway, A sunbeam in a winter's day, Is all the proud and mighty have Between the cradle and the grave.

    John DyerJohn Dyer quote #1
  3. Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power.

    Horace MannHorace Mann quote #3