Quotes from Rudyard Kipling

but why should I waste wisdom on a river-turtle?

There is no gift like friendship. Remember this - when you become a young man. For your fate will turn on the first true friend you make.

Hearts are like horses. They come and they go against bit or spur.

It is better to lie quiet in the mud than to be disturbed on good bedding.

Tiger! Tiger! What of the hunting, hunter bold? Brother, the watch was long and cold. What of the quarry ye went to kill? Brother, he crops in the jungle still. Where is the power that made your pride? Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side. Where is the haste that ye hurry by? Brother, I go to my lair—to die.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; 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!

And the Eldest Magician said, 'How wise are little children who see and are silent!

If any question why we died, tell them, because our fathers lied.

I hate and fear snakes, because if you look into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and more of the mystery of man's fall, and that it feels all the contempt that the Devil felt when Adam was evicted from Eden. Besides which its bite is generally fatal, and it twists up trouser legs. (The Return Of Imray)

Barbarians are all alike... sit up half the night to discuss anything a Roman says.

An increasing cackle of complaints, orders, and jests, and what to a European would have been bad language, came from behind the curtains. Here was evidently a woman used to command.

Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs as they need, and ye can; But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill Man!

I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy.

Now Rann the Kite brings home the night That Mang the Bat sets free— The herds are shut in byre and hut For loosed till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power, Talon and tush and claw. Oh, hear the call!—Good hunting all That keep the Jungle Law!

We never pay anyone Dane-geld, no matter how trifling the cost. For the end of that game is oppression and shame and the nation that plays it is lost!

Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!

We be of one blood, thou and I—

Now Rann the Kite brings home the night That Mang the Bat sets free— The herds are shut in byre and hut For loosed till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power, Talon and tusk and claw. Oh, hear the call!--Good hunting all That keep the Jungle Law!

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools...

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man- There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:- That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins From The Gods of the Copybook Headings

When the Himalayan 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.

God He knows we need men more and more in the Game.

Fit to do anything," said the Second-in-Command enthusiastically. "But it seems to me they're a thought too young and tender for the work in hand. It's bitter cold up at the Front now." "They're sound enough," said the Colonel. "We must take our chance of sick casualties.

Cites and Thrones and Powers Stand in Time's eye Which daily die; But, as new buds put forth To glad new men, Out of the spend and unconsidered Earth, The cities will rise again