Rudyard Kipling > Quotes

“Mad! Quite mad!' said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting strange beasts. 'Beetle reads an ass called Brownin', and M'Turk reads an ass called Ruskin; and-'
'Ruskin isn't an ass,' said M'Turk. 'He's almost as good as the Opium-Eater. He says we're "children of noble races, trained by surrounding art." That means me, and the way I decorated the study when you two badgers would have stuck up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a noble race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading or I'll shove a pilchard down your neck!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Complete Stalky and Co.

“The country isn’t half worked out because they that governs it won’t let you touch it. They spend all their blessed time in governing it, and you can’t lift a spade, nor chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that without all the Government saying — ‘Leave it alone and let us govern.’ Therefore, such as it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place where a man isn’t crowded and can come to his own. We are not little men, and there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed a Contrack on that. Therefore, we are going away to be Kings.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Man Who Would Be King

“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!”
― Rudyard Kipling, Gunga Din and Other Favorite Poems

“chasing silly rose leaves”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“E Harvey, essendo tutt'altro che ottuso, cominciò ad apprezzare e a godere l'aspro coro delle onde, quando le loro creste si infrangono una dietro l'altra, in un incessante scroscio; la fretta del vento che liberava gli immensi spazi, ammassando le ombre azzurrine e purpuree delle nubi; la splendente aurora, quando il sole si leva in un'aureola di fiamma; le spirali delle nebbie mattutine e il loro lento dissolversi come muraglie che collino a una a una, sulla candida distesa; lo splendido e salmastro riverbero del meriggio; il bacio della pioggia su miglia e miglia di acqua morta e liscia; il frettoloso oscurarsi del mondo al calar della sera; l'infinito scintillare del mare sotto il chiaro di luna, quando il bompresso aguzzava, solenne, la cima verso lontane stelle, e Harvey scendeva dal cuoco per un dolce.”
― Joseph Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous

“Day after day, the whole day through—
Wherever my road inclined—
Four-Feet said, "I am coming with you!"
And trotted along behind.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Well,” said Rikki-tikki, and his tail began to fluff up again, “marks or no marks, do you think it is right for you to eat fledglings out of a nest?”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“Through the night, through the hot night, run swiftly with me, my brothers. We will leave the lights of the village and go to the low moon.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“(Here Rikki-tikki interrupted, and the rest of the song is lost.)”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“Whether ye rise for the sake of a creed,
Or riot in hope of spoil,
Equally will I punish the deed,
Equally check the broil;
No wise permitting injustice at all
From whatever doctrine it springs—
But—whether ye follow Priapus or Paul,
I care for none of these things.”

Gallio’s Song”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rudyard Kipling's Verse Definitive Edition

“And Mowgli had not the faintest idea of the difference that caste makes between man and man. When the potter’s donkey slipped in the clay pit, Mowgli hauled it out by the tail, and helped to stack the pots for their journey to the market at Khanhiwara. That was very shocking, too, for the potter is a low-caste man, and his donkey is worse. When the priest scolded him, Mowgli threatened to put him on the donkey too, and the priest told Messua’s husband that Mowgli had better be set to work as soon as possible; and the village head-man told Mowgli that he would have to go out with the buffaloes next day, and herd them while they grazed. No one was more pleased than Mowgli; and that night, because he had been appointed a servant of the village, as it were, he went off to a circle that met every evening on a masonry platform under a great fig-tree. It was the village club, and the head-man and the watchman and the barber, who knew all the gossip of the village, and old Buldeo, the village hunter, who had a Tower musket, met and smoked. The monkeys sat and talked in the upper branches, and there was a hole under the platform where a cobra lived, and he had his little platter of milk every night because he was sacred; and the old men sat around the tree and talked, and pulled at the big huqas (the water-pipes) till far into the night. They told wonderful tales of gods and men and ghosts; and Buldeo told even more wonderful ones of the ways of beasts in the jungle, till the eyes of the children sitting outside the circle bulged out of their heads. Most of the tales were about animals, for the jungle was always at their door. The deer and the wild pig grubbed up their crops, and now and again the tiger carried off a man at twilight, within sight of the village gates.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“I am alone on the grazing-grounds. Gray Brother, come to me! Come to me, Lone Wolf, for there is big game afoot!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“I explained as much as I knew of the seal-cutter’s way of jadoo; but her argument was much more simple: “The magic that is always demanding gifts is no true magic,” said she.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills

“Now whither does THIS trail lead?" Kaa's voice was gentler. "Not a moon since there was a Manling with a knife threw stones at my head and called me bad little tree-cat names, because I lay asleep in the open.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“The Coppersmith is a bird who makes a noise exactly like the beating of a little hammer on a copper pot; and the reason he is always making it is because he is the town crier to every Indian garden, and tells all the news to everybody who cares to listen.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“Why not follow the Way thyself, and so accompany the boy?"

Mahbub stared stupefied at the magnificent insolence of the demand, which across the Border he would have paid with more than a blow. Then the humor of it touched his worldly soul.

"Softly -- softly -- one foot at a time, as the lame gelding went over the Umballa jumps. I may come to Paradise later -- I have workings that way -- great motions -- and I owe them to thy simplicity.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“IN the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth—so! Till at last there was only one small fish left in all the sea, and he was a small 'Stute Fish, and he swam a little behind the Whale's right ear, so as to be out of harm's way. Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said, 'I'm hungry.' And the small 'Stute Fish said in a small 'stute voice, 'Noble and generous Cetacean, have you ever tasted Man?”
― Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories

“All the jungle knows that I have killed Shere Khan. Look—look well, O Wolves!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“promised his love to keep her quiet—that he had never”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills

“I dance on the hide of Shere Khan, but my heart is very heavy. My mouth is cut and wounded with the stones from the village, but my heart is very light, because I have come back to the jungle. Why?”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“His line was the jocundly-sentimental Wardour Street brand of adventure, told in a style that exactly met, but never exceeded, every expectation.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“At the hole where he went in Red-Eye called to Wrinkle-Skin. Hear what little Red-Eye saith: “Nag, come up and dance with death!” Eye to eye and head to head,      (Keep the measure, Nag.) This shall end when one is dead;      (At thy pleasure, Nag.) Turn for turn and twist for twist–      (Run and hide thee, Nag.) Hah! The hooded Death has missed!      (Woe betide thee, Nag!)”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“So Time that is o'er-kind
To all that be,
Ordains us e'en as blind,
As bold as she:
That in our very death,
And burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
"See how our works endure!”
― Rudyard Kipling, 100 Poems: Old and New

“Or ever the knightly years were gone      With the old world to the grave, I was a king in Babylon”
― Rudyard Kipling, Indian Tales

“Wolf Pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is shut to me and the village gates are shut. Why?”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Има мълчание от велика ненавист
и мълчание от велика любов
И мълчание на дълбок душевен покой ,
И мълчанието на приятелството
преродило се в дълбока ненавист...

Има мълчание на невинно наказаните,
И мълчанието на умиращия,
ръката на когото внезапно стиска твоята..

Има мълчание между сина и бащата,
когато той не може да му обясни своя живот
макар,че неумението му да обяснява
е неговата трагедия

Има мълчание,когато мъжът и жената
няма какво да си кажат един на друг...
Има мълчание на загиналите в устрем
и плътното мълчание,което обгръща
сломените нации и победените Вождове...

А ето мълчанието на Линколн,
мислещ за своите млади години,
минали в разбити надежди...
И мълчанието на Наполеон след Ватерлоо...”
― Kipling R.

“If there be good in that I wrought Thy Hand compelled it, Master, Thine – Where I have failed to meet Thy Thought I know, through Thee, the blame was mine.... The depth and dream of my desire, The bitter paths wherein I stray – Thou knowest who hast made the Fire, Thou knowest who hast made the Clay.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kipling's India

“Baloo made one effort to hurry, but had to sit down panting,”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“If you cross examine a child of seven or eight on his day's doings (specially when he wants to go to sleep), he will contradict himself very satisfactorily. If each contradiction be set down as a lie and retailed at breakfast, life is not easy. I have known a certain amount of bullying, but this was calculated torture - religious as well as scientific.”
― Rudyard Kipling