Rudyard Kipling > Quotes

“One of these days, Strickland is going to write a little book on his experiences. That book will be worth buying; and even more, worth suppressing.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills

“The Man Pack are angry. They throw stones and talk child’s talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let me run away.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“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.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“By the Bull that bought me I made a promise—a little promise. Only thy coat is lacking before I keep my word.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“There is no one to touch Jane when you're in a tight place.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“The tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes, like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“A man’s cub is a man’s cub, and he must learn all the Law of the Jungle.” “But think how small he is,” said the Black Panther, who would have spoiled Mowgli if he had had his own way. “How can his little head carry all thy long talk?” “Is there anything in the jungle too little to be killed? No. That is why I teach him these things, and that is why I hit him, very softly, when he forgets.” “Softly! What dost thou know of softness, old Iron-feet?” Bagheera grunted. “His face is all bruised to-day by thy—softness. Ugh!” “Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me who love him than that he should come to harm through ignorance,” Baloo answered very earnestly.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Returning, it was noticeable, as his friend the Seeker pointed out to the head-priest, that he ceased for a while to mourn the loss of his River, or to draw wondrous pictures of the Wheel of Life, but preferred to talk of the beauty and wisdom of a certain mysterious chela whom no man of the temple had ever seen.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“As he held he closed his jaws tighter and tighter, for he made sure he would be banged to death, and, for the honor of his family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“He is not Ikki to dig holes, nor Mao, the Peacock, that he should fly. He is not Mang the Bat, to hang in the branches. Little bamboos that creak together, tell me where he ran?”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Augrh!" said Father Wolf. "It is time to hunt again." He was going to spring down hill 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." It was the jackal—Tabaqui, the Dish-licker—and the wolves of India despise Tabaqui because he runs about making mischief, and telling tales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village rubbish-heaps. But they are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than anyone else in the jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he forgets that he was ever afraid of anyone, and runs through the forest biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Men often do their best work blind, for some one else's sake.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills

“They are very many, evil, dirty, shameless, and they desire, if they have any fixed desire, to be noticed by the Jungle People.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“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. He found a”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“He had forgotten the egg. It still lay on the veranda, and Nagaina came nearer and nearer to it, till at last, while Rikki-tikki was drawing breath, she caught it in her mouth, turned to the veranda steps, and flew like an arrow down the path, with Rikki-tikki behind her. When the cobra runs for her life, she goes like a whip-lash flicked across a horse’s neck.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“whimper in the dark, and knew that Vixen had found me at last. She knew as well as I did that if there is one thing in the world the elephant is more afraid of than another it is a little barking dog. So she”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“When a man does good work out of all proportion to his pay, in seven cases out of nine there is a woman at the back of the virtue. The two exceptions must have suffered from sunstroke.

All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with, except in India, where nothing changes in spite of the shiny top-scum stuff that people call "civilization".”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills

“El éxito comienza en la voluntad”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Here was a new craft that a man could tuck away in his head and by the look of the large wide world unfolding itself before him, it seemed that the more a man knew the better for him.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

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, All the Mowgli Stories

“Something is coming uphill," said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear. "Get ready." The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped with his haunches under him, ready for his leap. Then, if you had been watching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world—the wolf checked in mid-spring. He made his bound before he saw what it was he was jumping at, and then he tried to stop himself. The result was that he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landing almost”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had fired both barrels of a shotgun into Nag just behind the hood.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“Trees and men do not grow together,”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling: The Complete Works PergamonMedia

“But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Ballad of East and West

“To things greater than all things are,   The first is Love, and the second War.   "And since we know not how War may prove,   Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!”
― Rudyard Kipling, Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads

“single-handed, through the bathrooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Darzee, the Tailorbird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice, but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting. He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink. He could scratch himself anywhere he pleased with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use. He could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle brush, and his war cry as he scuttled through the long grass was:”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“One paid for one's knowledge with one's skin.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with, except in India, where nothing changes in spite of the shiny, top-scum stuff that people call 'civilization.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy

“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 death and burial.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills

“Nag, the big black cobra, and he was five feet long from tongue to tail.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi