Rudyard Kipling Quotes

307 Sourced Quotes

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
My Daemon was with me in the Jungle Books, Kim, and both Puck books, and good care I took to walk delicately lest he should withdraw. I know that he did not, because when these books were finished they said so themselves with, almost, the water-hammer click of a tap turned off.

Rudyard Kipling
Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,
It will vanish and the stars will shine again,
Because, for all our power and weight and size,
We are nothing more than children of your brain!

Rudyard Kipling
They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?

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
One man in a thousand, Solomon says,
Will stick more close than a brother.

Rudyard Kipling
Too much work and too much energy kill a man just as effectively as too much assorted vice or too much drink.

Rudyard Kipling
Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again:
Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant,
Out o' the cold an' the rain.

Rudyard Kipling
Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed—go back with an open eye,
And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die:
That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one—
And the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!

Rudyard Kipling
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
A Flopshus Cad, an Outrageous Stinker, a Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper.

Rudyard Kipling
Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the Law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

Rudyard Kipling
Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro—
And what should they know of England who only England know?—
The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag.

Rudyard Kipling
For a season there must be pain—
For a little, little space
I shall lose the sight of her face,
Take back the old life again
While She is at rest in her place.

Rudyard Kipling
One fine morning in the middle of the Precession of the Equinoxes.... That very next morning, when there was nothing left of the Equinoxes, because the Precession had preceded according to precedent...

Rudyard Kipling
There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep, Or the great grey level plains of ooze where the shellburred cables creep. Here is the womb of the world — here on the tie-ribs of earth Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat.

Rudyard Kipling
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

Rudyard Kipling
Power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.

Rudyard Kipling
The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds—
The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e gives 'er all she needs;
But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun',
They're just the same as you an' me a-plyin' up an' down!

Rudyard Kipling
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments, an' a man can raise a thirst.

Rudyard Kipling
Just statin' evidential facts beyon' all argument.

Rudyard Kipling
I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.

Rudyard Kipling
Far-called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh, and Tyre!

Rudyard Kipling
Such boasting as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law.

Rudyard Kipling
Four things greater than all things are,—
Women and Horses and Power and War.

Rudyard Kipling