Rudyard Kipling Quotations | Page 2

I keep six honest serving men: They taught me all I knew: Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who

I had six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. Their names were: Where, What, When, Why, How and Who.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, / Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute / With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, / Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, / And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

If you don't get what you want, it's a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or that you tried to bargain over the price

If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.

Take up the White Man's burden - / And reap his old reward: / The blame of those ye better, / The hate of those ye guard.

Stiff-necked Glasgow beggar! I've heard he's prayed for my soul, / But he couldn't lie if you paid him, and he'd starve before he stole.

Never praise a sister to a sister in the hope of your compliments reaching he proper ears.

Never praise a sister to a sister in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears

They copied all they could follow but they couldn't copy my mind so I left them sweating and stealing a year and a half behind

Call a truce, then to our labors - let us feast with friends and neighbors And be merry as the custom of our caste; For if "faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness follow after, We are richer by one mocking Christmas past

Buy a pup and your money will buy love unflinching.

But, through the shift of mood and mood, Mine ancient humor saves him whole The cynic devil in his blood That bids him mock his hurrying soul; That bids him flout the Law he makes, That bids him make the Law he flouts, Till, dazed by many doubts, h

Gentlemen-Rankers out on the spree, / Damned from here to Eternity.

He's an absent-minded beggar, and his weaknesses are great - / But we and Paul must take him as we find him. / He's out on active service, wiping something off a slate - / And he's left a lot of little things behind him!

There's times when you'll think that you mightn't, / There's times when you know that you might; / But the things you will learn from the Yellow and Brown, / They'll 'elp you a lot with the White!

It was not preached to the crowd, / It was not taught by the State. / No man spoke it aloud, / When the English began to hate.

Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor / With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead?

The great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees.

All we have of freedom -- all we use or know -- this our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.

All we have of freedom - all we use or know - This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago

The Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

The coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go!

For Allah created the English mad - the maddest of all mankind!

It's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and 'chuck 'im out, the brute,' But it's 'Savior of his Country,' When the guns begin to shoot!

This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago

What stands if Freedom fall? / Who dies if England live?

Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh - / He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!

There lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour.

There's a little red-faced man, / Which is Bobs. / Rides the tallest 'orse 'e can - / Our Bobs.

How very little, since things were made, / Things have altered in the building trade.

For the Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady / Are sisters under their skins!

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

If he plays, being young and unskillful, For shekels of silver or gold, Take his money, my son praising Allah: The kid was ordained to be sold

All the people like us are We, / And every one else is They.

And I'd like to roll to Rio / Some day before I'm old!

And, each in his separate star, / Shall draw the Thing as he sees it for the God of things as they are!

No doubt but ye are the People - absolute, strong and wise; Whatever your hear has desired ye have not withheld from your eyes. On your own heads, in your own hands, the sin and the saving lies!

Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful person till he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental he is charming. It is only when he insists on being treated as the most easterly of western peoples instead of the most westerly of easterns that he becomes a racial anomaly extremely difficult to handle.

And what should they know of England who only England know?

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race... and the hearts of the meanest were humbled.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget!

I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers.

For all we take we must pay, but the price is cruel high.

One can't prescribe books, even the best books, to people unless one knows a good deal about each individual person. If a man is keen on reading, I think he ought to open his mind to some older man who knows him and his life, and to take his advice in the matter, and above all, to discuss with him the first books that interest him.

If you want something and don't get it, there are only two reasons. You either really didn't want it, or you tried to bargain over the price.

All the money in the world is no use to a man or his country if he spends it as fast as he makes it. All he has left is his bills and the reputation for being a fool.

Hear and attend and listen; for this is what befell and be-happened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild -as wild as wild could be - and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself and all places were alike to him

On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer; China 'crost the Bay!

Till the master of all good workmen shall set us to work anew.

What stands if Freedom fail? What dies of England live?

As the dawn comes up like thunder.

When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew!

Tis beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just IT. Some women will stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street.

Call a truce, then, to our labors - let us feast with friends and neighbors, and be merry as the custom of our caste; for if ''faint and forced the laughter,'' and if sadness follow after, we are richer by one mocking Christmas past.

The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth point goes.

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."

The American does not drink at meals as a sensible man should. Indeed, he has no meals. He stuffs for ten minutes thrice a day.

And the end of the fight is tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, and the epitaph drear, "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."

But till we are built like angels, with hammer and chisel and pen, we will work for ourself and a woman, forever and ever, Amen.

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.

What is the moral? Who rides may read.

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

... he became an officer and a gentleman, which is an enviable thing;

The 'eathen in 'is blindness must end where 'e began. But the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man!

Not getting what you want either means you don't want it enough, or you have been dealing too long with the price you have to pay.

I have stated it plain, an' my argument's thus ( It's all one, says the Sapper) There's only one Corps which is perfect - that's us; An' they call us Her Majesty's Engineers, With the rank and pay of a Sapper!

Still stands thine ancient sacrifice - An humble and a contrite heart.

More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.

For it's "guns this" and "guns that," and "chuck 'em out, the brutes," But they're the "Savior of our loved ones" when the thugs begin to loot.

I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made By singing 'Oh how wonderful' and sitting in the shade, While better men than we go out, and start their working lives By grubbing weeds from garden paths with broken dinner knives.

However the world pretends to divide itself, there are only two divisions in the world today - human beings and Germans.

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

Gentleman-rankers out on the spree, damned from here to Eternity.

God gives all men all earth to love, but since man's heart is small, ordains for each one spot shall prove belov?d over all.

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.

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.

There rise her timeless capitals of empires daily born, whose plinths are laid at midnight and whose streets are packed at morn; and here come tired youths and maids that feign to love or sin in tones like rusty razor blades to tunes like smitten tin.

There are nine-and-sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right.

Doctors have been exposed-you always will be exposed-to the attacks of those persons who consider their own undisciplined emotions more important than the world's most bitter agonies-the people who would limit and cripple and hamper research because they fear research may be accompanied by a little pain and suffering.

Ah! What avails the classic bent And what the cultured word, Against the undoctored incident That actually occurred? And what is Art whereto we press Through paint and prose and rhyme- When Nature in her nakedness Defeats us every time?

Every woman knows all about everything.

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.

When the Hymalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride, He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside. But the she-bear thus accosted, rends the peasant tooth and nail, For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

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

Satan himself can't save a woman who wears thirty-shilling corsets under a thirty-guinea costume.

Cities and Thrones and Powers Stand in Time's eye, Almost as long as flowers, Which daily die

The cat will keep his side of the bargain. He will kill mice, and he will be kind to babies when he is in the house, just so long as they do not pull his tail too hard. But when he has done that, and between times, 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 on the Wet Wild trees or on the Wet Wild roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.

One learns more from a good scholar in a rage than from a score of lucid and laborious drudges.

Once there was The People - Terror gave it birth.

Body and spirit I surrendered whole To harsh instructors and received a soul... If mortal man could change me through and through From all I was What may the God not do?

The jungle speaks to me because I know how to listen.

One cannot resist the lure of Africa.

Go softly by that river side Or when you would depart, You'll find its every winding tied; And knotted round your heart.

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice peg, We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg. We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart, But the devil whoops, as he whooped of old; It's clever, but is it art?

What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'If you don't work you die.'

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.