Rudyard Kipling > Quotes

“You perceive, do you not, that our national fairy tales reflect the inmost desires of the Briton and the Gaul?”
― Rudyard Kipling

“One can't prescribe books, even the best books, to people unless one knows a good deal about each individual person. If a man is keen on reading, I think he ought to open his mind to some older man who knows him and his life, and to take his advice in the matter, and above all, to discuss with him the first books that interest him.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“The sky above them was an intense velvety black, changing to bands of Indian red on the horizon, where the great stars burned like street-lamps. From time to time a greenish wave of the Northern Lights would roll across the hollow of the high heavens, flick like a flag, and disappear; or a meteor would crackle from darkness to darkness, trailing a shower of sparks behind. Then they could see the ridged and furrowed surface of the floe tipped and laced with strange colours—red, copper, and bluish; but in the ordinary starlight everything turned to one frost-bitten gray.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books

“They talk o' rich folks bein' stuck up and genteel, but for iron-clad pride o' respectability there's nowt like poor chapel folk. Why, 'tis as cold as the wind on Greenhow Hill -- aye, and colder, too, for 'twill never change.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Hunting Verse—"Feet that make no noise; eyes that can see in the dark; ears that can hear the winds in their lairs, and sharp white teeth, all”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Men who are accustomed to eat at tiny tables in howling gales have curiously neat and finished manners;”
― Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous

“Me! Me that taught you how for to walk abroad like a man—whin you was a dhirty little, fish-backed little, whimperin' little recruity. As you are now, Stanley Orth'ris!" Ortheris said nothing for a while, Then he unslung his belt, heavy with the badges of half a dozen regiments that his own had lain with, and handed it over to Mulvaney. "I'm too little for to mill you, Mulvaney,”
― Rudyard Kipling, Indian Tales

“Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path; for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Never ask a man his opinion of a woman's dress when he is desperately and abjectly in love with the wearer.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Man Who Would Be King and Other Stories

“What's the trouble?" I said, knowing well what that trouble was.

"I've a notion in my head that would make the most splendid story that was ever written. Do let me write it out here. It's such a notion!"

There was no resisting the appeal. I set him a table; he hardly thanked me, but plunged into the work at once. For half an hour the pen scratched without stopping. Then Charlie sighed and tugged his hair. The scratching grew slower, there were more erasures, and at last ceased. The finest story in the world would not come forth.

"It looks such awful rot now," he said, mournfully. "And yet it seemed so good when I was thinking about it. What's wrong?"

I could not dishearten him by saying the truth. So I answered: "Perhaps you don't feel in the mood for writing."

"Yes I do--except when I look at this stuff. Ugh!"

"Read me what you've done," I said.

"He read, and it was wondrous bad, and he paused at all the specially turgid sentences, expecting a little approval; for he was proud of those sentences, as I knew he would be.

"It needs compression," I suggested, cautiously.

"I hate cutting my things down. I don't think you could alter a word here without spoiling the sense. It reads better aloud than when I was writing it."

"Charlie, you're suffering from an alarming disease afflicting a numerous class. Put the thing by, and tackle it again in a week."

"I want to do it at once. What do you think of it?"

"How can I judge from a half-written tale? Tell me the story as it lies in your head."

Charlie told, and in the telling there was everything that his ignorance had so carefully prevented from escaping into the written word. I looked at him, and wondering whether it were possible that he did not know the originality, the power of the notion that had come in his way? It was distinctly a Notion among notions. Men had been puffed up with pride by notions not a tithe as excellent and practicable. But Charlie babbled on serenely, interrupting the current of pure fancy with samples of horrible sentences that he purposed to use. I heard him out to the end. It would be folly to allow his idea to remain in his own inept hands, when I could do so much with it. Not all that could be done indeed; but, oh so much!”
― Rudyard Kipling

“was calling for us like a madman. When we reached him he was dripping with perspiration, and trembling like a startled horse. We had great difficulty in soothing him. He complained that he was in civilian kit, and wanted to tear my clothes off his body. I ordered him to strip, and we made a second exchange as quickly as possible.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Indian Tales

“If your mirror be broken, look into still water; but have a care that you do not fall in.     —Hindu Proverb.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Indian Tales

“All India is full of holy men stammering gospels in strange tongues; shaken and consumed in the fires of their own zeal; dreamers, babblers and visionaries: as t has been from the beginning and will continue to the end.

Followed the usual aimless babble that every low-caste native must raise on every occasion.

Swiftly - as Orientals understand speed - with long explanations, with abuse and windy talk, carelessly, amid a hundred checks for little things forgotten.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Cuvintele sunt cel mai important drog utilizat de
omenire.”
― Rudyard Kippling

“The Song of Mowgli—I, Mowgli, am singing. Let the jungle listen to the things I have done. Shere Khan said he would kill—would kill! At the gates in the twilight he would kill Mowgli, the Frog!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Sometimes Bagheera the Black Panther would come”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“This was to me a far more terrible loss than the two that I had suffered before. For though, Lord help me, I had travelled far enough from all paths of decent or godly living, yet there was in me, though I myself write it, a certain goodness of heart which, when I was sober (or sick) made me very sorry of all that I had done before the fit came on me. And this I lost wholly: having in place thereof another deadly coldness at the heart. I am not, as I have before said, ready with my pen, so I fear that what I have just written may not be readily understood.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy

“but at St Xavier's they know the first rush of minds developed by sun and surroundings, as they know the half-collapse that sets in at twenty-two or twenty-three.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“I've never sailed the Amazon,
I've never reached Brazil;
But the Don and Magdalena,
They can go there when they will!

Yes, weekly from Southampton,
Great steamers, white and gold,
Go rolling down to Rio
(Roll down—roll down to Rio!)
And I'd like to roll to Rio
Some day before I'm old!

I've never seen a Jaguar,
Nor yet an Armadill
O dilloing in his armour,
And I s'pose I never will,

Unless I go to Rio
These wonders to behold
Roll down—roll down to Rio
Roll really down to Rio!
Oh, I'd love to roll to Rio
Some day before I'm old!”
― Kipling Rudyard 1865-1936

“What am I? Mussalman, Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist? That is a hard nut.’ ‘Thou art beyond question an unbeliever, and therefore thou wilt be damned. So says my Law—or I think it does. But thou art also my Little Friend of all the World, and I love thee. So says my heart.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“and if somehow my conduct ain't all your fancy paints, why single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints”
― Rudyard Kipling, Barrack Room Ballads & Departamental Ditties and Ballads

“The Wolves are a free people,” said Father Wolf. “They take orders from the Head of the Pack, and not from any striped cattle-killer. The man’s cub is ours—to kill if we choose.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the woods with”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Second Jungle Book

“Now India is a place beyond all others where one must not take things too seriously - the mid-day sun always excepted. Too much work and too much energy kill a man as effectively as too much assorted vice or too much drink. Flirtation does not matter, because every one is being transferred, and either you or she leave the station and never return. Good work does not matter, because a man is judged by his worst output, and another man takes all the credit of his best as a rule. Bad work does not matter, because other men do worse, and incompetents hang on longer in India than anywhere else. Amusements do not matter, because you must repeat them as soon as you have accomplished them once, and most amusements only mean trying to win another person's money. Sickness does not matter, because it's all in the day's work, and if you die, another man takes over your place and your office in the eight hours between your death and burial. Nothing matters except Home-furlough and acting allowances, and these only because they are scarce. It is a slack country, where all men work with imperfect instruments, and the wisest thing is to escape as soon as you ever can to some place where amusement is amusement and a reputation worth the having.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows

“Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children that they may never forget the hungry in this world.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story

“The White Seal Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us, And black are the waters that sparkled so green. The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us At rest in the hollows that rustle between. Where billow meets billow, then soft be thy pillow, Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease! The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee, Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas! Seal Lullaby”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Ahae! My heart is heavy with the things that I do not understand.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Across a world where all men grieve
And grieving strive the more,
The great days range like tides and leave
Our dead on every shore.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Collected Poems of Rudyard Kipling

“Nosotros no nos hemos separado por completo, pero aún no ha llegado el momento de que volvamos juntos a la carretera. Ahora está adquiriendo conocimientos en otro lugar. No tenemos más remedio que esperar.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Then says Mrs. Hauksbee to me – she looked a trifle faded and jaded in the lamplight: “Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills