Rudyard Kipling > Quotes

“So some of him lived but most of him died. (The Vampire)”
― Rudyard Kipling

“His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a widow, and”
― Rudyard Kipling, Indian Tales

“THEY shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a path through the woods
Before they planted the trees:
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ring’d pools
Where the otter whistles his mate
(They fear not men in the woods
Because they see so few),
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods …
But there is no road through the woods.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Bagheera told him that he must never touch cattle because he had been bought into the Pack at the price of a bull's life.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“For three things my heart is disquieted;
and for four that I cannot bear:

For a woman who esteemeth herself a man;
and a man that delighteth in her company;

For a people whose young men are cut off by the sword;
and for the soul that regardeth not these things.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“think there is a great deal in you; but you must not become proud and you must not talk.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Most true is it in the Great Game, for it is by means of women that all plans come to ruin and we lie out in dawning with our throats cut.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Go, and peace go with thee. Only, another time do not meddle with my game.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“threw his soul after his eye across the deep blue gulfs between range and range.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“and 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,”
― Rudyard Kipling, The complete works of Rudyard Kipling

“Half a dozen epicene young pagans who haven’t even been to Algiers will tell you, first, that your notion is borrowed, and, secondly, that it isn’t Art. ‘This comes of my leaving town for a month. Dickie, you’ve been promenading among the toy-shops and hearing people talk.’ ‘I couldn’t help it,’ said Dick, penitently. ‘You weren’t here, and it was lonely these long evenings. A man can’t work for ever.’ ‘A man might have gone to a pub, and got decently drunk.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling

“Of course, Kaa could have crushed a dozen Mowglis if he had let himself go; but he played carefully, and never loosed one-tenth of his power. Ever since Mowgli was strong enough to endure a little rough handling, Kaa had taught him this game, and it suppled his limbs as nothing else could.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Complete Jungle Books

“For a wolf, no," said Tabaqui, "but for so mean a person as myself a dry bone is a good feast. Who are we, the Gidur-log [the jackal people], to pick and choose?" He scuttled to the back of the cave, where he found the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat cracking the end merrily. "All thanks for this good meal," he said, licking his lips. "How beautiful are the noble children! How large are their eyes! And so young too! Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children of kings are men from the beginning." Now, Tabaqui knew as well as anyone else that there is nothing so unlucky as to compliment children to their faces. It pleased him to see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Man!" he snapped. "A man's cub. Look!" Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch, stood a naked brown baby who could just walk—as soft and as dimpled a little atom as ever came to a wolf's cave at night. He looked up into Father Wolf's face, and laughed. "Is that a man's cub?" said Mother Wolf. "I have never seen one. Bring it here." A Wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs can, if necessary, mouth an egg without breaking it, and though Father Wolf's jaws closed right on the child's back not a tooth even scratched the skin as he laid it down among the cubs. "How little! How naked,”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Se saprai mantenere la testa quando tutti intorno a te
La perdono, e te ne fanno colpa.
Se saprai avere fiducia in te stesso quando tutti ne dubitano,
Tenendo però in considerazione anche il loro dubbio.
Se saprai aspettare senza stancarti di aspettare,
O essendo calunniato, non rispondere con calunnia,
O essendo odiato, non dare spazio all'odio,
Senza tuttavia sembrare troppo buono, né parlare troppo saggio;

Se saprai sognare, senza fare del sogno il tuo padrone;
Se saprai pensare, senza fare del pensiero il tuo scopo,
Se saprai confrontarti con Trionfo e Rovina
E trattare allo stesso modo questi due impostori.
Se riuscirai a sopportare di sentire le verità che hai detto
Distorte dai furfanti per abbindolare gli sciocchi,
O a guardare le cose per le quali hai dato la vita, distrutte,
E piegarti a ricostruirle con i tuoi logori arnesi.

Se saprai fare un solo mucchio di tutte le tue fortune
E rischiarlo in un unico lancio a testa e croce,
E perdere, e ricominciare di nuovo dal principio
Senza mai far parola della tua perdita.
Se saprai serrare il tuo cuore, tendini e nervi
Nel servire il tuo scopo quando sono da tempo sfiniti,
E a tenere duro quando in te non c'è più nulla
Se non la Volontà che dice loro "Tenete duro!"

Se saprai parlare alle folle senza perdere la tua virtù,
O passeggiare con i Re, rimanendo te stesso,
Se né i nemici né gli amici più cari potranno ferirti,
Se per te ogni persona conterà, ma nessuno troppo.
Se saprai riempire ogni inesorabile minuto
Dando valore ad ognuno dei sessanta secondi,
Tua sarà la Terra e tutto ciò che è in essa,
E - quel che più conta - sarai un Uomo, figlio mio!”
― Joseph Rudyard Kipling

“The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But does not talk my talk –
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Estaba confuso. Se miró las botas con tristeza, él que siempre había ido descalzo. "¿Quién soy yo?", se preguntó. "Yo soy Kimball O'Hara, un blanco, un sahib. No, un sahib, no. Yo soy Kim. Pero, ¿quién es Kim?". Él, Kim, en medio del rugiente torbellino de la India, no era más que un ser insignificante que iba hacia el sur, ignorando lo que el destino iba a depararle.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“You'll be beaten for this in the morning; but I may as well give you something on account now.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“If you can meet with triumph and disaster.
And treat those two imposters just the same.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Limmershin is a very odd little bird, but he knows how to tell the truth.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Cannot tell why we or they March and suffer day by day. Children of the Camp are we, Serving each in his degree; Children of the yoke and goad, Pack and harness, pad and load!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“L'amore è simile a un disegno: si può andare avanti, o cancellare. Non ci si può fermare a un certo punto.
[La luce che si spense]”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed

“Interessi e piaceri immediati non possono riempire tutta la vita di un uomo.
[La luce che si spense]”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed

“We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go;”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“I've just read that I'm dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers.”
― Rudyard J. Kipling

“On a calm sea, every man is a pilot.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous

“The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk--
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

The men of my own stock,
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wanted to,
They are used to the lies I tell;
And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy or sell.

The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control--
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.

The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.

This was my father's belief
And this is also mine:
Let the corn be all one sheaf--
And the grapes be all one vine,
Ere our children's teeth are set on edge
By bitter bread and wine.”
― Kipling Rudyard

“You can work it out by Fractions or by simple Rule of Three,
But the way of Tweedle-dum is not the way of Tweedle-dee.
You can twist it, you can turn it, you can plait it till you drop,
But the way of Pilly Winky’s not the way of Winkie Pop!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book / FREE: Around the World in Eighty Days