Kim Quotes

“There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“This is a brief life, but in its brevity it offers us some splendid moments, some meaningful adventures.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“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

“It is not a good fancy,' said the llama. 'What profit to kill men?'
Very little - as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“For Kim did nothing with an immense success.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“No need to listen for the fall. This is the world's end.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Something I owe to the soil that grew—
More to the life that fed—
But most to Allah who gave me two
Separate sides to my head.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Those who beg in silence starve in silence,”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“I am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim?" His soul repeated it again and again.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Hearts are like horses. They come and they go against bit or spur.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“An increasing cackle of complaints, orders, and jests, and what to a European would have been bad language, came from behind the curtains. Here was evidently a woman used to command.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“[A Buddhist monk on a pilgrimage speaks to a museum curator.]
And I come here alone. For five--seven--eighteen--forty years it was in my mind that the old Law was not well followed; being overlaid, as thou knowest, with devildom, charms, and idolatry....'
So it comes with all faiths.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“The meaning of my star is war.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“He sat in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammeh, on her old platform, opposite the old Ajaib gher, the Wonder House, as the natives called the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“India was awake, and Kim was in the middle of it, more awake and more excited than anyone, chewing on a twig that he would presently use as a toothbrush; for he borrowed right- and left-handedly from all the customs of the country he knew and loved.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

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

“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

“He drew from under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellow-Chinese paper, the brushes, and slab of India ink. In cleanest, severest outline he had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes, whose centre is the conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance, Anger, and Lust), and whose compartments are all the heavens and hells, and all the chances of human life.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Do not weep; for, look you, all Desire is Illusion and a new binding upon the Wheel.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Kim dived into the happy Asiatic disorder which, if you only allow time, will bring you everything that a simple man needs.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“and with an almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on the world without. Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball an instant before slid into proper proportion. Roads were meant to be walked upon, houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, fields to be tilled, and men and women to be talked to. They were all real and true—solidly”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Well, I believe in miracles, so it comes to”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“all Desire is Illusion and a new binding upon the Wheel.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“I consider in my own mind whether thou art a spirit, sometimes, or sometimes an evil imp," said the lama, smiling slowly.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“I follow the Law—the Most Excellent Law.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“Now I see, however,'—he exhaled smoke slowly—'that it is with them as with all men—in certain matters they are wise, and in others most foolish. Very foolish it is to use the wrong word to a stranger; for though the heart may be clean of offence, how is the stranger to know that? He is more like to search truth with a dagger.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died in child-bed. She haunts lonely roads, her feet are turned backwards on the ankles, and she leads men to torment.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is eternally pestered by women? There was that girl at the Akrola by the Ford; and there was the scullion's wife behind the dovecote -- not counting the others -- and now comes this one! When I was a child it was well enough, but now I am a man and they will not regard me as a man. Walnuts indeed! Ho! Ho! It is almonds in the Plains!”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“O ye who tread the Narrow Way By Tophet-flare to judgment Day, Be gentle when ‘the heathen’ pray To Buddha at Kamakura!”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“The Sahibs have not all this world’s wisdom.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim