Rudyard Kipling > Quotes

“Mowgli stood upright—the fire-pot in his hands. Then he stretched out his arms, and yawned in the face of the Council; but he was furious with rage and sorrow, for, wolf-like, the wolves had never told him how they hated him.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Burmese babies—fat, little, brown little divils, as”
― Rudyard Kipling, Indian Tales

“THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD" "Or ever the knightly years were gone      With the old world to the grave, I was a king in Babylon      And you were a Christian slave,"         —W.E. Henley. His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a widow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the City every day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and suffered from aspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon where the marker called him by his given name, and he called the marker "Bullseyes." Charlie explained, a little nervously, that he had only come to the place to look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheap amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie should go back to his mother.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Indian Tales

“Pleasant it is for the Little Tin Gods
When great Jove nods;
But Little Tin Gods make their little mistakes
In missing the hour when great Jove wakes.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Years Between

“Among the young ravens driven to roost awhile on Graydon's ark was James Andrew Manallace - a darkish, slow northerner of a type that does not ignite, but must be detonated. ("Dayspring Mishandled")”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Kerick Booterin turned nearly white under his oil and smoke, for he was an Aleut, and Aleuts are not clean people. Then he began to mutter a prayer. "Don't touch him, Patalamon. There has never been a white seal since—since I was born. Perhaps it is old Zaharrof's ghost. He was lost last year in the big gale." "I'm not going near him," said Patalamon. "He's unlucky. Do you really think he is old Zaharrof come back? I owe him for some gulls' eggs." "Don't look at him," said Kerick. "Head off that drove of four-year-olds. The men ought to skin two hundred to-day, but it's the beginning of the season and they are new to the work. A hundred will do. Quick!" Patalamon rattled a pair of seal's shoulder bones in front of a herd of holluschickie and they stopped dead, puffing and blowing. Then he stepped near and the seals began”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“If men had not this delusion as to the ultra-importance of their own particular employments, I suppose that they would sit down and kill themselves. But their weakness is wearisome, particularly when the listener knows that he himself commits exactly the same sin.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills

“Darzee was a feather-brained little fellow who could never hold more than one idea at a time in his head.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“Let the Gods order it. I have never pestered Them with prayers. I do not think They will pester me. Look you, I have noticed in my long life that those who eternally break in upon Those Above with complaints and reports and bellowings and weepings are presently sent for in haste, as our Colonel used to send for slack-jawed down-country men who talked too much. No, I have never wearied the Gods. They will remember this, and give me a quiet place where I can drive my lance in the shade, and wait to welcome my sons: I have no less than three ressaldar-majors all—in the regiments.’ ‘And they likewise, bound upon the Wheel, go forth from life to life—from despair to despair,’ said the lama below his breath, ‘hot, uneasy, snatching.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they; But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is—Obey!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Second Jungle Book

“Mowgli went on with his work, but it was nearly twilight before he and the wolves had drawn the great gay skin clear of the body.

'Now we must hide this and take the buffaloes home! Help me to herd them, Akela.'

The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got near the village Mowgli saw lights, and heard the conches and bells in the temple blowing and banging. Half the village seemed to be waiting for him by the gate. 'That is because I have killed Shere Khan,' he said to himself; but a shower of stones whistled about his ears, and the villagers shouted: 'Sorcerer! Wolfs brat! Jungle-demon! Go away! Get hence quickly, or the priest will turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot, Buldeo, shoot!'

The old Tower musket went off with a bang, and a young buffalo bellowed in pain.

'More sorcery!' shouted the villagers. 'He can turn bullets. Buldeo, that was thy buffalo.'

'Now what is this?' said Mowgli, bewildered, as the stones flew thicker.

'They are not unlike the Pack, these brothers of thine,' said Akela, sitting down composedly. 'It is in my head that, if bullets mean anything, they would cast thee out.'

'Wolf! Wolf's cub! Go away!' shouted the priest, waving a sprig of the sacred tulsi plant.

'Again? Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is because I am a wolf. Let us go, Akela.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“the Bandar-log, fear Kaa the Rock Snake. He can climb as well as they can. He steals the young monkeys in the night. The whisper of his name makes their wicked tails cold. Let us go to Kaa." "What”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“MOWGLI’S SONG (That He Sang at the Council Rock When He Danced On Shere Khan’s Hide)”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“for by the roadside trundled the very Wheel itself, eating, drinking, trading, marrying, and quarrelling—all warmly alive.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“When you find out you can live without it, go along not thinking about it.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Dick laughed. ‘Well, it’s only to you I’m talking. I did him just as well as I knew how, making allowance for the slickness of oils. Then the art-manager of that abandoned paper said that his subscribers wouldn’t like it. It was brutal and coarse and violent, — man being naturally gentle when he’s fighting for his life. They wanted something more restful, with a little more colour. I could have said a good deal, but you might as well talk to a sheep as an art-manager. I took my “Last Shot” back. Behold the result! I put him into a lovely red coat without a speck on it. That is Art. I polished his boots, — observe the high light on the toe. That is Art. I cleaned his rifle, — rifles are always clean on service, — because that is Art.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The complete works of Rudyard Kipling

“Hathi, the wild elephant, who lives for a hundred years and more, saw a long, lean blue ridge of rock show dry in the very centre of the stream, he knew that he was looking at the Peace Rock, and then and there he lifted up his trunk and proclaimed the Water Truce,”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rudyard Kipling: The Complete Jungle Books [The Jungle Book & The Second Jungle Book]

“But no sooner had he walked to the city wall than the monkeys pulled him back, telling him that he did not know how happy he was, and pinching him to make him grateful.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“There is no pride,’ said the lama, after a pause, ‘there is no pride among such as follow the Middle Way.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“came because I wished to see thee—misguided by the Red Mist of affection.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“If you meet with triumph and disaster, treat those two impostors just the same.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“To traffic with Their foes: And yet to Them men turn their eyes, To Them are vows renewed Of Faith, Obedience, Sacrifice, Honour and”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling

“What do they know of England who only England know?”
― Rudyard Kipling via Alice Kipling his mother

“because every well-brought-up mongoose always hopes to be a house mongoose some day and have rooms to run about in;”
― Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

“If we confine our attention entirely to the slang of the day - that is to say, if we devote ourselves exclusively to modern literature - we get to think the world is progressing when it is only repeating itself...It is only when one reads what men wrote long ago that one realizes how absolutely modern the best of the old things are.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Skin-changing always makes a snake moody and depressed till the new skin begins to shine and look beautiful.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The King's Ankus