Top 307 Quotes & Sayings by Rudyard Kipling - Page 4

...he will be our friend for always and always and always.

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

We be of one blood, ye and I

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.'

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

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.

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.

They are fools who kiss and tell'-- Wisely has the poet sung. Man may hold all sorts of posts If he'll only hold his tongue.

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! If I were drowned in the deepest sea, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine! I know whose tears would come down to me, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine! If I were damned of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!

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!

They copied all they could copy, But they couldn't copy my mind; And I left them sweatin' and stealin', A year and a half behind.

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.

As the dawn comes up like thunder.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.

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

One can't prescribe books, even the best books, to people unless one knows a good deal about each individual person.

An angry skipper makes an unhappy crew.

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

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.

These are the four that are never content: that have never been filled since the dew began- Jacala's mouth, and the glut of the kite, and the hands of the ape, and the eyes of Man.

One half of my head, from the top of my skull to the cleft of my jaw, hammers, bangs, sizzles while the other half, serene and content, looks on at the agony next door.

All gods have good points, just as have all priests. Personally, I attach much importance to Hanuman , and am kind to his people the great gray apes of the hills. One never knows when one may want a friend.

This is Burma, and it will be quite unlike any land you know about.

How can you do anything until you have seen everything,or as much as you can?

I keep six honest serving men.

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

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

Smells are surer than sounds or sights To make your heartstrings crack.

No one accuses the Gunner of maudlin affection for anything except his beasts and his weapons. He hasn't the time. He serves at least three jealous gods—his horse and all its saddlery and harness; his gun, whose least detail of efficiency is more important than men's lives; and, when these have been attended to, the never-ending mystery of his art commands him.

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

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

Both triumph and disaster are impostors.

Of all the trees that grow so fair Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun Than Oak, and Ash and Thorn.

If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim.

We had a kettle; we let it leak: Our not repairing made it worse. We haven't had any tea for a week... The bottom is out of the Universe.

They will come back, come back again, As long as the red earth rolls. He never wasted a leaf or a tree. Do you think he would squander souls?

One man in a thousand, Solomon says. Will stick more close than a brother. And it's worth while seeking him half your days If you find him before the other. ---The Thousandth Man

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

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!

Single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints.

Well, if I am a man, a man I must become.

A thin grey fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; for summer was in England.

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.

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

I've taken my fun where I've found it.

There are few things sweeter in this world than the guileless, hotheaded, intemperate, open admiration of a junior. Even a woman in her blindest devotion does not fall into the gait of the man she adores, tilt her bonnet to the angle at which he wears his hat, or interlard her speech with his pet oaths.

Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of their mothers.

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

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

I have no gift of words, but I speak the truth.

It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts, such as falling in love at first sight.

Every woman knows all about everything.

There aren't twelve-hundred people in the world who understand pictures. The others pretend and don't care.

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.

If you can wait and not be tired of waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies. Or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.

Like the destroyer, the submarine has created its own type of officer and man with language and traditions apart from the rest of the service, and yet at the heart unchangingly of the Service

Yet there be certain times in a young man’s life, when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the more sorrowful state of manhood

Enough work to do, and strength enough to do the work.

And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!