Top 307 Quotes & Sayings by Rudyard Kipling

It's clever, but is it Art?

Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run.

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.

For the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one.

For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves 'It's pretty, but is it Art?'

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

I have struck a city - a real city - and they call it Chicago... I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.

The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.

He travels the fastest who travels alone.

Everyone is more or less mad on one point.

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

Small miseries, like small debts, hit us in so many places, and meet us at so many turns and corners, that what they want in weight, they make up in number, and render it less hazardous to stand the fire of one cannon ball, than a volley composed of such a shower of bullets.

A man's mind is wont to tell him more than seven watchmen sitting in a tower.

A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.

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!'

Borrow trouble for yourself, if that's your nature, but don't lend it to your neighbours.

Heaven grant us patience with a man in love.

A people always ends by resembling its shadow.

We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.

A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

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

San Francisco is a mad city - inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty.

I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble.

If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what's more, you'll be a man, my son.

Never look backwards or you'll fall down the stairs.

Asia is not going to be civilized after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.

All the people like us are we, and everyone else is They.

Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established.

Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful,' and sitting in the shade.

Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone.

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

If I were hanged on the highest hill, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! I know whose love would follow me still Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.

God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.

And that is called paying the Dane-geld; but we've proved it again and again, that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld you never get rid of the Dane.

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

We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.

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.

If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting ... if you can dream, and not make dreams your master; if you can think, and not make thoughts your aim; if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same; ... yours is the earth and everything that's in it...

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.

If you can walk with the crowd and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; 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!

No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be. Not all the books on all the shelves - but what the teachers are themselves.

He who faces no calamity gains no courage.

There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this.

We are the opening verse of the opening page of the chapter of endless possibilities.

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.

Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.

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.

If you give someone more than they can do, they will do it. If you give them only what they can do, they will do nothing.

Humble because of knowledge; mighty by sacrifice.

A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition

Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.

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

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

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.

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.

There's no jealousy in the grave.