Rudyard Kipling > Quotes

“Threatened men live long.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill

“Akela, the great gray Lone Wolf, who led all the Pack by strength and cunning, lay out at full length on his rock, and below him sat forty or more wolves of every size and color, from badger-colored veterans who could handle a buck alone, to young black three-year-olds who thought they could. The Lone Wolf had led them for a year now. He had fallen twice into a wolf-trap in his youth, and once he had been beaten and left for dead; so he knew the manners and customs of men.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!”
― Rudyard Kipling, Barrack Room Ballads & Departamental Ditties and Ballads

“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.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Indian Tales

“Man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories

“You may kill for yourselves, and your mates,
and your cubs as they need, and you can;
But kill not for pleasure of killing, and
SEVEN TIMES NEVER KILL MAN.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Second Jungle Book

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

“Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Story of the Gadsbys

“I hate and fear snakes, because if you look into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and more of the mystery of man's fall, and that it feels all the contempt that the Devil felt when Adam was evicted from Eden. Besides which its bite is generally fatal, and it twists up trouser legs.

("The Return Of Imray")”
― Rudyard Kipling

“And the Eldest Magician said, 'How wise are little children who see and are silent!”
― Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories [with Biographical Introduction]

“Jika anda mampu berkepala dingin saat sekeliling anda kehilangan akal dan menyalahkan anda,

Jika anda bisa percaya diri saat orang lain meragukan anda, tetapi memperhatikan juga keraguan mereka,

Jika anda bisa menunggu tanpa jemu dan tidak membalas kebohongan dengan kebohongan, atau kebencian dengan kebencian,

Jika anda bisa tahan mendengar kebenaran yang anda katakan diplintir oleh orang licik untk mempengaruhi orang-orang bodoh, atau melihat jerih payah anda dihancurkan, tapi gigih bertahan membangunnya kembali dengan peralatan yang morat marit,

Jika anda bisa bergaul dengan rakyat jelata tanpa menjadi kampungan, dan dengan raja-raja tanpa menjadi sombong,

Jika lawan mau pun kawan tidak bisa merusakkan anda, maka anda adalah sungguh manusia sejati.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“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...”
― Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father's Advice to His Son

“It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day’s rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with 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.” 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.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story

“Tiger! Tiger!" What of the hunting, hunter bold? Brother, the watch was long and cold. What of the quarry ye went to kill? Brother, he crops in the jungle still. Where is the power that made your pride? Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side. Where is the haste that ye hurry by? Brother, I go to my lair—to die.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“but why should I waste wisdom on a river-turtle?”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books

“And he grew and grew strong as a boy must grow who does not know that he is learning any lessons, and who has nothing in the world to think of except things to eat" (23).”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Let them fall Mowgli, they are only tears.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books

“And so hold on when there is nothing in you,
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs as they need, and ye can;
But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill Man!”
― Rudyard Kipling

“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!”
― Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father's Advice to His Son

“Witta feared nothing - except to be poor.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill

“Words are the most powerful drug used by humankind.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“A man-trained boy would have been badly bruised, for the fall was a good fifteen feet, but Mowgli fell as Baloo had taught him to fall, and landed on his feet.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade."
"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“The Three-Decker

"The three-volume novel is extinct."

Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.
It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;
But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best—
The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.

Fair held the breeze behind us—’twas warm with lovers’ prayers.
We’d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.
They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,
And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.

By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,
Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took
With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,
And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.

We asked no social questions—we pumped no hidden shame—
We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:
We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.
We weren’t exactly Yussufs, but—Zuleika didn’t tell.

No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared,
The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.
’Twas fiddle in the forc’s’le—’twas garlands on the mast,
For every one got married, and I went ashore at last.

I left ’em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.
I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques.
In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed,
I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!

That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift again
Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.
They’re just beyond your skyline, howe’er so far you cruise
In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.

Swing round your aching search-light—’twill show no haven’s peace.
Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas!
Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest—
And you aren’t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest!

But when you’re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,
At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale,
Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,
You’ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.

You’ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread;
You’ll hear the long-drawn thunder ’neath her leaping figure-head;
While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine
Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!

Hull down—hull down and under—she dwindles to a speck,
With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck.
All’s well—all’s well aboard her—she’s left you far behind,
With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.

Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make?
You’re manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming’s sake?
Well, tinker up your engines—you know your business best—
She’s taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest!”
― Rudyard Kipling

“The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason, forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that man-killing means, sooner or later, the arrival of white men on elephants, with guns, and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches. Then everybody in the jungle suffers. The reason the beasts give among themselves is that Man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“His nickname through all the wards was ' Little Friend of all the World'; and very often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion. It was intrigue, of course.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“God He knows we need men more and more in the Game.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim