Quotes & Sayings About Kipling

The American has no language, he has a dialect, slang, provincialism, accent and so forth — Rudyard Kipling

I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an "engaged" on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and "Vanity Fair" and Kipling's "Plain Tales" and - don't laugh - "Little Women." I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on "Little Women." I haven't told anybody though (that would stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about! — Jean Webster

From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than any one has ever known it. — Oscar Wilde

During five literary generations every enlightened person had despised him, and at the end of that time nine-tenths of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kipling is in some sense still there. — George Orwell

Believe the best of everybody. — Rudyard Kipling

Sing to your fledglings again, — Rudyard Kipling

Kipling called it a very long conversation. — Lauren Groff

The masterless man ... afflicted with the magic of the necessary words ... Words that may become alive and walk up and down in the hearts of the hearers. — Rudyard Kipling

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave Them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us, and delivered us, bound, to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know." — Rudyard Kipling

There was a young man of Quebec
Who was frozen in snow to his neck,
When asked, 'Are you Friz?'
He replied, 'Yes I is,
But we don't call this cold in Quebec.' — Rudyard Kipling

The Navy is very old and very wise. — Rudyard Kipling

If a man can hear the truth he's spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools ... — Rudyard Kipling

I wish to eat," said Mowgli. "I am a stranger in this part of the jungle. Bring me food, or give me leave to hunt here. — Rudyard Kipling

Monkey People? They — Rudyard Kipling

O it's Tommy this, an'Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away": But it's "Thank you, Mister Adkins," when the band begins to play ... — Rudyard Kipling

If you hit a pony over the nose at the outset of your acquaintance, he may not love you but he will take a deep interest in your movements ever afterwards — Rudyard Kipling

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

Nations have passed away and left no traces, And history gives the naked cause of it - One single simple reason in all cases; They fell because their peoples were not fit. — 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

Many religious people are deeply suspicious. They seem, for purely religious purposes, of course, to know more about iniquity than the unregenerate. — Rudyard Kipling

Holden found one helpless little hand that closed feebly on his finger. And the clutch ran through his body till it settled about his heart. Till then his sole thought had been for Ameera. He began to realise that there was some one else in the world, ... — Rudyard Kipling

The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky
The deer to the wholesome wold;
And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
As it was in the days of old. — Rudyard Kipling

I am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim? His soul repeated it again and again. — Rudyard Kipling

He who rebukes the World is rebuked by the World — Rudyard Kipling

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And hold on when there's nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: Hold on! — Rudyard Kipling

He will kill mice and he will be kind to babies ... but when the moon gets up and the night comes, he is the Cat that Walks by Himself. — Rudyard Kipling

Bagheera to see if the Panther was angry too, and Bagheera's eyes were as hard as jade stones. "Thou hast been with the Monkey People
the gray apes
the people without a law
the eaters of everything. That is great shame." "When Baloo hurt my head," said Mowgli (he was still on his back), "I went away, and the gray — Rudyard Kipling

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

Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade. — Rudyard Kipling

The Son of Man goes forth to war, A golden crown to gain; His blood-red banner streams afar - Who follows in his train? I — Rudyard Kipling

Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all his life received a direct order - never, at least, without long, and sometimes tearful, explanations of the advantages of obedience and the reasons for the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of breaking his spirit, which, perhaps, was the reason that she herself walked on the edge of nervous prostration. — Rudyard Kipling

The heart of a man to the heart of a maid-
Light of my tents, be fleet-
Morning awaits at the end of the world,
And the world is all at our feet. — Rudyard Kipling

I have asked a lot of my emotions-one hundred and twenty stories. The price was high, right up with Kipling, because there was one little drop of something, not blood, not a tear, not my seed, but me more intimately than these, in every story, it was the extra I had. Now it has gone and I am just like you now. — F Scott Fitzgerald

It's clever, but is it art? — Rudyard Kipling

Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay! — Rudyard Kipling

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:-
'Though we know we should defeat you,
we have not the time to meet you,
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.' — Rudyard Kipling

Who has smelled the woodsmoke at twilight, who has seen the campfire burning, who is quick to read the noises of the night? — Rudyard Kipling

And the last puff of the day-wind brought from the unseen villages the scent of damp wood-smoke, hot cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones. That is the true smell of the Himalayas, and if once it creeps into the blood of a man, that man will at the last, forgetting all else, return to the hills to die. — Rudyard Kipling

I keep six honest serving men (they taught me all i knew); Theirs names are What and Why and When And How And Where and Who. — Rudyard Kipling

Meddling with another man's folly is always thankless work. — Rudyard Kipling

Know too much, young un," said Billy, "and that is one — Rudyard Kipling

When man has come to the Turnstiles of Night, all the creeds in the world seem to him wonderfully alike and colorless. — Rudyard Kipling

Youth had been a habit of hers for so long that she could not part with it. — Rudyard Kipling

Cross that rules the Southern Sky!
Stars that sweep, and turn, and fly
Hear the Lovers' Litany: -
'Love like ours can never die! — Rudyard Kipling

Or ever the knightly years were gone With the old world to the grave, — Rudyard Kipling

contacted my boss for help and he was able to open the door. The door to the bathroom was locked — James Kipling

Only the keeper sees
that,where the ring-dove broods
and the badgers roll at ease,
there was once a road through the woods — Rudyard Kipling

Discomfort it temporary. A photo is forever. — Kipling Swehla

A liar only lies when he hopes to be believed. — Rudyard Kipling

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

Now whither does THIS trail lead?" Kaa's voice was gentler. "Not a moon since there was a Manling with a knife threw stones at my head and called me bad little tree-cat names, because I lay asleep in the open. — Rudyard Kipling

...for all art is one, as Kipling has written, and your art chooses you, not you the art. — Michael Powell

The python dropped his head lightly for a moment on Mowgli's shoulders. "A brave heart and a courteous tongue," said he. "They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling. But now go hence quickly with thy friends. Go and sleep, for the moon sets and what follows it is not well that thou shouldst see. — Rudyard Kipling

The Irish move to the sound of the guns like salmon to the sea — Rudyard Kipling

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

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

Funny how the new things are the old things. — Rudyard Kipling

Because of Kipling, I've sometimes wondered about keeping a mongoose about the house. But given the cobra population in Silver Spring, Maryland - zero, when last I checked - we hardly need a Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. — Michael Dirda

India is the one place in the world where a man can do as he pleases and nobody asks why; — Rudyard Kipling

He wrapped himself in quotations - as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors. — Rudyard Kipling

One day, a high summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking, down a roadside ditch. — Rudyard Kipling

This was to me a far more terrible loss than the two that I had suffered before. For though, Lord help me, I had travelled far enough from all paths of decent or godly living, yet there was in me, though I myself write it, a certain goodness of heart which, when I was sober (or sick) made me very sorry of all that I had done before the fit came on me. And this I lost wholly: having in place thereof another deadly coldness at the heart. I am not, as I have before said, ready with my pen, so I fear that what I have just written may not be readily understood. — Rudyard Kipling

The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had fired both barrels of a shotgun into Nag just behind the hood. — Rudyard Kipling

Be slow to judge for we know little of what has been done and nothing of what has been resisted. — Rudyard Kipling

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

There is no harm in a man's cub. — Rudyard Kipling

None of the Jungle People like being disturbed. — Rudyard Kipling

Many years ago Rudyard Kipling gave an address at McGill University in Montreal. He said one striking thing which deserves to be remembered. Warning the students against an over-concern for money, or position, or glory, he said: "Some day you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are." - Halford E. Luccock — Guy Kawasaki

If I were dammed of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole, mother o' mine o mother o' mine. — Rudyard Kipling

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. — Rudyard Kipling

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

Most amusements only mean trying to win another person's money. — Rudyard Kipling

Your new-caught, sullen peoples, / Half-devil and half child. — Rudyard Kipling

The jungle speaks to me because I know how to listen. — Rudyard Kipling

Hunting Verse - Feet that make no noise; eyes that can see in the dark; ears that can hear the winds in their lairs, and sharp white teeth, all — Rudyard Kipling

Our loves are not given, but only lent, At compound interest of cent per cent. — Rudyard Kipling

If England was what England seems, And not the England of our dreams; But only putty, brass, and paint, 'Ow we'd chuck 'er- but she ain't! — Rudyard Kipling

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." It was the jackal - Tabaqui, the Dish-licker - and the wolves of India — Rudyard Kipling

Any fool can waste, any fool can muddle, but it takes something of a man to save, and the more he saves the more of a man does it make of him. — Rudyard Kipling

You perceive, do you not, that our national fairy tales reflect the inmost desires of the Briton and the Gaul? — Rudyard Kipling

When I was a schoolboy in England, the old bound volumes of Kipling in the library had gilt swastikas embossed on their covers. The symbol's 'hooks' were left-handed, as opposed to the right-handed ones of the Nazi hakenkreuz, but for a boy growing up after 1945 the shock of encountering the emblem at all was a memorable one. I later learned that in the mid-1930s Kipling had caused this 'signature' to be removed from all his future editions. Having initially sympathized with some of the early European fascist movements, he wanted to express his repudiation of Hitlerism (or 'the Hun,' as he would perhaps have preferred to say), and wanted no part in tainting the ancient Indian rune by association. In its origin it is a Hindu and Jainas symbol for light, and well worth rescuing. — Christopher Hitchens

Will there never come a season Which shall rid us from the curse? Of a prose which knows no reason And an unmelodious verse: When the world shall cease to wonder At the genius of an Ass, And a boy's eccentric blunder Shall not bring success to pass: When mankind shall be delivered From the clash of magazines, And the inkstand shall be shivered Into countless smithereens: When there stands a muzzled stripling, Mute, beside a muzzled bore: When the Rudyards cease from Kipling And the Haggards Ride no more. — James Kenneth Stephen

The steel door of the incinerator went up and the muted hum of the eternal fire became a red roaring. The heat lunged out at them like a famished beast. Then Rahel's Ammu was fed to it. Her hair, her skin, her smile. Her voice. They way she used Kipling to love her children before putting them to bed: We be of one blood, though and I. Her goodnight kiss. The way she held their faces steady with one hand (squashed-cheeked, fish-mouthed) while she parted and combed their hair with the other. The way she held knickers out for Rahel to climb into. Left leg, right leg. All this was fed to the beast, and it was satisfied.
She was their Ammu and their Baba and she had loved them Double. — Arundhati Roy

The first
sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act
great. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assures
us, you must not look too good nor talk too wise. — Dale Carnegie

Let each man be judged by his deeds, I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I willed. — Rudyard Kipling

The deepwood is vanished in these islands
much, indeed, had vanished before history began
but we are still haunted by the idea of it. The deepwood flourishes in our architecture, art and above all in our literature. Unnumbered quests and voyages have taken place through and over the deepwood, and fairy tales and dream-plays have been staged in its glades and copses. Woods have been a place of inbetweenness, somewhere one might slip from one world to another, or one time to a former: in Kipling's story 'Puck of Pook's Hill,' it is by right of 'Oak and Ash and Thorn' that the children are granted their ability to voyage back into English history. — Robert Macfarlane

Then Kotick roared to the seals: I've done my best for you these five seasons past. I've found you the island where you'll be safe, but unless your heads are dragged off your silly necks you won't believe. I'm going to teach you now. Look out for yourselves! — Rudyard Kipling

Boil 'em once or twice in hot water, and they'll come as fair as chicken and ham. — 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

Good work does not matter, because a man is judged by his worst output and another man takes all the credit of his best as a rule. Bad work does not matter, because other men do worse, and incompetents hang on longer in India than anywhere else. Amusements do not matter, because you must repeat them as soon as you have accomplished them once, and most amusements only mean trying to win another person's money. Sickness does not matter, because it's all in the day's work, and if you die another man takes over your place and your office in the eight hours between death and burial. — Rudyard Kipling

Body and spirit, I surrendered whole, To harsh Instructors- and received a soul. — Rudyard Kipling

[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

Mad! Quite mad!' said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting strange beasts. 'Beetle reads an ass called Brownin', and M'Turk reads an ass called Ruskin; and-'
'Ruskin isn't an ass,' said M'Turk. 'He's almost as good as the Opium-Eater. He says we're "children of noble races, trained by surrounding art." That means me, and the way I decorated the study when you two badgers would have stuck up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a noble race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading or I'll shove a pilchard down your neck! — Rudyard Kipling

speak - a thing he would never have dared to do — Rudyard Kipling

Who has delivered us, who? Tell me his nest and his name. Rikki, the valiant, the true, Tikki, with eyeballs of flame, Rikk-tikki-tikki, the ivory-fanged, the hunter with eyeballs of flame! — Rudyard Kipling

Cat said, 'I am not a friend, and I am not a Servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your Cave.' — Rudyard Kipling

Your Gods and my Gods - do you or I know which are the stronger? - Native Proverb. — Rudyard Kipling

I want to be able to do anything with words: handle slashing, flaming descriptions like Wells, and use the paradox with the clarity of Samuel Butler, the breadth of Bernard Shaw and the wit of Oscar Wilde, I want to do the wide sultry heavens of Conrad, the rolled-gold sundowns and crazy-quilt skies of Hitchens and Kipling as well as the pastel dawns and twilights of Chesterton. All that is by way of example. As a matter of fact I am a professed literary thief, hot after the best methods of every writer in my generation. — F Scott Fitzgerald

They did not hang medals, in those days, on all who by accident had heard a gun fired. — Rudyard Kipling

Huh! It is only a pahari," said Kim over his shoulder. "Since when have the hill-asses owned all Hindustan?"
The retort was a swift and brilliant sketch of Kim's pedigree for three generations. — Rudyard Kipling