Rudyard Kipling > Quotes

“Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“We had a kettle; we let it leak:
Our not repairing made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week...
The bottom is out of the Universe.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Collected Poems of Rudyard Kipling

“At two o'clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen,
You will hear the feet of the Wind that is going to call the sun.
And the trees in the Shadow rustle and the trees in the moonlight glisten,
And though it is deep, dark night, you feel that the night is done.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!”
― Rudyard Kipling, Debits And Credits

“All the people like us are we, and everyone else is they.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.”
― Rudyard Kipling

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

“When young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion and despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge. Though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach faith where no faith was. ”
― Rudyard Kipling

“They will come back, come back again,
As long as the red earth rolls.
He never wasted a leaf or a tree.
Do you think he would squander souls?”
― Ruyard Kipling

“I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chains -
I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs.
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar cane;
I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs.
I will go out until the day, until the morning break -
Out to the wind's untainted kiss, the water's clean caress;
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket stake.
I will revisit my lost love and playmates masterless!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books

“Asia is not going to be civilised after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“A Time For Prayer

"In times of war and not before,
God and the soldier we adore.
But in times of peace and all things righted,
God is forgotten and the soldier slighted."

-Rudyard Kipling”
― Rudyard Kipling

“And the first rude sketch that the world has seen
was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it art?”
― Rudyard Kipling, Barrack Room Ballads & Departamental Ditties and Ballads

“I have seen something of this world," she said over the trays, "and there are but two sorts of women in it-- those who take the strength out of a man, and those who put it back. Once I was that one, and now I am this.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“If you can wait and not be tired of 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.”
― Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father's Advice to His Son

“(An unhappy childhood was not) an unsuitable preparation for my future, in that it demanded a constant wariness, the habit of observation, and the attendance on moods and tempers; the noting of discrepancies between speech and action; a certain reserve of demeanour; and automatic suspicion of sudden favours.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Something of Myself

“I have my own matches and sulphur, and I'll make my own hell.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed

“A black shadow dropped down into the circle. It was Bagheera the Black Panther, inky black all over, but with the panther markings showing up in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk. Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path, for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books

“He travels the fastest who travels alone.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“We be of one blood, ye and I”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books

“I Keep Six Honest Serving Men ..."

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views;
I know a person small—
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

She sends'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes—
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant's Child

“My heart is heavy with the things I do not understand.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“TWENTY bridges from Tower to Kew -
Wanted to know what the River knew,
Twenty Bridges or twenty-two,
For they were young, and the Thames was old
And this is the tale that River told:”
― Rudyard Kipling

“How can you do anything until you have seen everything,or as much as you can?”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed

“She is intensely human, and lives to look upon life.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Yet there be certain times in a young man’s life, when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the more sorrowful state of manhood”
― Rudyard Kipling

“A thin grey fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; for summer was in England.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed [Illustrated]

“OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kipling: Poems

“There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and woman to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers & Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“These are the four that are never content: that have never been filled since the dew began-
Jacala's mouth, and the glut of the kite, and the hands of the ape, and the eyes of Man.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books