Rudyard Kipling > Quotes

“Darzee’s Chant (Sung in honor of Rikki-tikki-tavi) Singer and tailor am I– Doubled the joys that I know– Proud of my lilt to the sky, Proud of the house that I sew– Over and under, so weave I my music–so weave I the house that I sew. Sing to your fledglings again, Mother, oh lift up your head! Evil that plagued us is slain, Death in the garden lies dead. Terror that hid in the roses is impotent–flung on the dung-hill and dead! Who has delivered us, who? Tell me his nest and his name. Rikki, the valiant, the true, Tikki, with eyeballs of flame, Rikk-tikki-tikki, the ivory-fanged, the hunter with eyeballs of flame!”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“They have no remembrance. They boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter, and all is forgotten.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Quelle ronde debbono eseguirsi con qualunque tempo e sotto qualunque luce si possano avere lassù all'altezza di undicimila piedi, con la Morte per compagna sotto ogni piede. Rocce lucenti di ghiaccio, dove una scarpa dai chiodi logorati scivola una volta ed una volta sola.”
― Rudyard Kipling, La guerra nelle montagne: Impressioni dal fronte italiano

“her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. “Augrh!” said Father Wolf, “it is time to hunt again”; and he was going to spring downhill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: “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

“Ere the moon has climbed the mountain, ere the rocks
are ribbed with light,”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books

“when he is far away, and we and our children must run when the grass is set alight. Indeed, we are very grateful to Shere Khan!" "Shall I tell him of your gratitude?" said Tabaqui. "Out!" snapped Father Wolf. "Out and hunt with thy master. Thou hast done harm enough for one night." "I go," said Tabaqui quietly. "Ye can hear Shere Khan below in the thickets. I might have saved myself the message." Father Wolf listened, and below in the valley that ran down to a little”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“He is a man—a man—a man!” snarled the Pack; and most of the wolves began to gather round Shere Khan, whose tail was beginning to switch.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rewards and Fairies

“You mustn’t swim till you’re six weeks old, Or your head will be sunk by your heels; And summer gales and Killer Whales Are bad for baby seals. Are bad for baby seals, dear rat, As bad as bad can be; But splash and grow strong, And you can’t be wrong. Child of the Open Sea!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Female of the Species

“This talk went in at one ear and out at the other, for a boy who spends his life eating and sleeping does not worry about anything till it actually stares him in the face. But, one year, Baloo's words came true, and Mowgli saw all the Jungle working under the Law.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Second Jungle Book

“Madden, from the pantry, rose to the crisis like a butler and a man.”
― Rudyard Kipling, They

“Tabaqui the Jackal must have bitten all these people," he said to himself,”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“pick him up by the tail, or try to put him in a cage, he’ll run in and out of the house all day long. Let’s give him something to eat.” They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikki-tikki liked it immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the veranda and sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots. Then he felt better. “There are more things to find out about in this house,” he said to himself, “than all my family could find out in all their lives. I shall certainly stay and find out.” He spent all that day roaming over the house. He nearly drowned himself in the bathtubs,”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“She walked on and on till she melted out of the picture - like - like a shadow jumping over a candle ...”
― Rudyard Kipling, Collected Stories

“And that lame butcher would have killed him and would have run off to the Waingunga while the villagers here hunted through all our lairs in revenge!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Friend of all the World,’ said Mahbub, pushing over the pipe for the boy to clean, ‘I have met many men, women, and boys, and not a few Sahibs. I have never in all my days met such an imp as thou art.’ ‘And why? When I always tell thee the truth.’ ‘Perhaps the very reason, for this is a world of danger to honest men.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“It is hard to live alone in the dark, confusing the day and night; dropping to sleep through sheer weariness at mid-day, and rising restless in the chill of the dawn. At first Dick, on his awakenings, would grope along the corridors of the chambers till he heard some one snore. Then he would know that the day had not yet come, and return wearily to his bedroom.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed

“One day, a high summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking, down a roadside ditch.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking, down a roadside ditch. He found a little wisp of grass floating there, and clung to it till he lost his senses. When he revived, he was lying in the hot sun on the middle of a garden path, very draggled indeed, and a small boy was saying, "Here's a dead mongoose.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“A SONG OF KABIR Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands!
Oh, heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands!
He has gone from the guddee and put on the shroud,
And departed in guise of bairagi avowed!
Now the white road to Delhi is mat for his feet,
The sal and the kikar must guard him from heat;
His home is the camp, and the waste, and the crowd—
He is seeking the Way as bairagi avowed!
He has looked upon Man, and his eyeballs are clear
(There was One; there is One, and but One, saith Kabir);
The Red Mist of Doing has thinned to a cloud—
He has taken the Path for bairagi avowed!
To learn and discern of his brother the clod,
Of his brother the brute, and his brother the God.
He has gone from the council and put on the shroud
("Can ye hear?" saith Kabir), a bairagi avowed!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Second Jungle Book

“Not though you die to-night,
O Sweet, and wail,
A spectre at my door,
Shall mortal Fear make Love immortal fail -- I shall but love you more,
Who, from Death's House returning,
give me still One moment's comfort in my matchless ill.”
― Rudyard Kipling, 100 Poems: Old and New

“No jury, we knew, could convict a man on the criminal count on native evidence in a land where you can buy a murder-charge, including the corpse, all complete for fifty-four rupees”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills

“Seriously, the Burmese girls are very pretty.”
― Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea

“They looked at one another and up and down, and they wondered. For the ways of elephants are beyond the wit of any man, black or white, to fathom.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“besides, this is much too good to tell all the other brutes in the Coll. They'd never understand. They play cricket, and say, 'Yes sir', and 'Oh, sir', and 'No, sir'.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Stalky & Co

“cotton wool, decided that it was not good to eat, ran all round the table, sat up and put his fur in order, scratched himself, and jumped on the small boy’s shoulder. “Don’t be frightened, Teddy,” said his father. “That’s his way of making friends.” “Ouch! He’s tickling under my chin,” said Teddy. Rikki-tikki looked down between the boy’s collar and neck, snuffed at his ear, and climbed down to the floor, where he sat rubbing his nose. “Good gracious,” said Teddy’s mother, “and that’s a wild creature! I suppose he’s so tame because we’ve been kind to him.” “All mongooses are like that,” said her husband. “If Teddy doesn’t pick him up by the tail, or try to put him in a cage, he’ll run in and out of the house all day long. Let’s give him something to eat.” They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikki-tikki liked it immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the veranda and sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots. Then he felt better. “There are more things to find out about in this house,” he said to himself, “than all my family could find out in all their lives. I shall certainly stay and find out.” He spent all that day roaming over the house. He nearly drowned himself in the bathtubs, put his nose into the ink on a writing table, and burned it on the end of the big man’s cigar, for he climbed up in the big man’s lap to see how writing was done. At nightfall he ran into Teddy’s nursery to watch how kerosene lamps were lighted, and when Teddy went to bed Rikki-tikki climbed up too. But he was a restless companion, because he had to get up and attend to every noise all through the night, and find out what made it. Teddy’s mother and father came in, the last thing, to look at their boy, and Rikki-tikki was awake on the pillow. “I don’t like that,” said Teddy’s mother. “He may bite the child.” “He’ll do no such thing,” said the father. “Teddy’s safer with that little beast than if he had a bloodhound to watch him. If a snake came into the nursery now–” But Teddy’s mother wouldn’t think of anything so awful. · · · Early in the morning Rikki-tikki came to early breakfast in the veranda riding on Teddy’s shoulder, and they gave him banana and some boiled egg. He sat on all their laps one after the other, because every well-brought-up mongoose always hopes to be a house mongoose some day and have rooms to run about in; and Rikki-tikki’s mother (she used to live in the general’s house at Segowlee) had carefully told Rikki what to do if ever he came across white men.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“Thou hast been with the Monkey People—the gray apes—the people without a law—the eaters of everything.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Singer and tailor am I– Doubled the joys that I know– Proud of my lilt to the sky, Proud of the house that I sew– Over and under, so weave I my music–so weave I the house that I sew.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch.
In the taking of it breathe
Prayer for all who lie beneath.
Not the great nor well-bespoke,
But the mere uncounted folk
Of whose life and death is none
Report or lamentation.
Lay that earth upon thy heart,
And thy sickness shall depart!”
― Rudyard Kipling, A Charm