Rudyard Kipling Quotes

307 Sourced Quotes

Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high
The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die—
The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!
And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.

Rudyard Kipling
I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
The deaths ye died I have watched beside
And the lives ye led were mine.

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

Rudyard Kipling
A scrimmage in a Border Station—
A canter down some dark defile—
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

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
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
For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we take tea with a few guns, o' course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an' surrender it's worse if you fights or you runs:
You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves, but you can't get away from the guns!

Rudyard Kipling
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody - it saves so much trouble.

Rudyard Kipling
That's the secret. 'Tisn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walk down a street.

Rudyard Kipling
If the aunt of the vicar has never touched liquor, watch out when she finds the Champagne.

Rudyard Kipling
Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears, and so preparing the way for you later on. Sisters are women first, and sisters afterwards; and you will find that you do yourself harm.

Rudyard Kipling
Father, Mother, and Me,
Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.

Rudyard Kipling
Being kissed by a man who didn't wax his moustache was like eating an egg without salt.

Rudyard Kipling
There's a Legion that never was 'listed,
That carries no colours or crest,
But, split in a thousand detachments,
Is breaking the road for the rest.

Rudyard Kipling
Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out.

Rudyard Kipling
When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
And the trunks begin to slide;
When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,
And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,
And you aren't waked or washed or dressed,
Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed)
You're 'Fifty North and Forty West!'

Rudyard Kipling
This man in his own country prayed we know not to what powers.
We pray them to reward him for his bravery in ours.

Rudyard Kipling
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

Rudyard Kipling
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
Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch.
In the taking of it breathe
Prayer for all who lie beneath.

Rudyard Kipling
Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end;
Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise,
Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice.

Rudyard Kipling
But remember, please, the Law by which we live,
We are not built to comprehend a lie,
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive,
If you make a slip in handling us you die!
We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings—
Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods!—
Our touch can alter all created things,
We are everything on earth—except The Gods!

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
Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world.

Rudyard Kipling
No easy hope or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.
There is but one task for all—
One life for each to give.
What stands if Freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?

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

Rudyard Kipling
'E's all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive
An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead.

Rudyard Kipling
'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse—soldier an' sailor too.

Rudyard Kipling
He was the greatest, as he was the hugest, of the war correspondents…and he always opened his conversation with the news that there would be trouble in the Balkans in the spring.

Rudyard Kipling
San Francisco has only one drawback. 'tis hard to leave.

Rudyard Kipling