A collection of quotes and sayings by Rudyard Kipling on words, writing, life, inspiration, children, perseverance, lessons, story-telling and isolation.
97 Rudyard Kipling Quotes That Will Inspire You To Think
Rudyard Kipling was an acclaimed English writer, novelist and poet. During his school days, he was drawn towards literature and realized about his love for writing, and became the editor of his school newspaper. After his schooling, he returned to India that had all his childhood memories. He found a job at a local newspaper which helped him discover his surroundings. He was an insomniac and wandered all through the night visiting brothels and opium dens open only for the natives. These experiences deeply influenced his forthcoming collection of short stories titled ‘Plain Tales From the Hills’. This was followed by various other books to justify his reputation as a writer. His most notable book was ‘The Jungle Book’ which had eight short stories revolving around the main character ‘Mowgli’. Although he was successful in bringing a smile on every child’s face with his books but his personal life was full of tragedies. Go through the quotes by this fabled writer where he fascinatingly plays with words to explain some of the important lessons of life. Take a look at some famous quotations and thoughts by Rudyard Kipling which have been excerpted from the vast sea of his work.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;!
The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.
Rudyard Kipling
Now, don't be angry after you've been afraid. That's the worst kind of cowardice.
Rudyard Kipling
Of all said words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these it might have been.
Rudyard Kipling
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.
And the first rude sketch that the world has seen
was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it art?
Rudyard Kipling
Asia is not going to be civilised after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.
Rudyard Kipling
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.
I have struck a city - a real city - and they call it Chicago. The other places don’t count. Having seen it, I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages
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
TWENTY bridges from Tower to Kew -
Wanted to know what the River knew,
Twenty Bridges or twenty-two,
For they were young, and the Thames was old
And this is the tale that River told:
The glory of the garden lies in more than meets the eye.
Rudyard Kipling
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
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.
A thin grey fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; for summer was in England.
Rudyard Kipling
All we have of freedom
All we use or know
This our fathers bought for us
Long and long ago
Rudyard Kipling
Now India is a place beyond all others where one must not take things too seriously—the midday sun always excepted.
Rudyard Kipling
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
Rudyard Kipling
Everyone is more or less mad on one point.
Rudyard Kipling
It is not a good fancy,' said the llama. 'What profit to kill men?'
Very little - as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers.
Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?
Rudyard Kipling
The tumalt and shouting dies,
The captains and the kings depart.
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heat.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget.
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
At twenty the things for which one does not care a damn should, properly, be many.
Rudyard Kipling
So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle from that day on. But he was not always alone, because years afterward he became a man and married.
But that is a story for grown-ups.
Rudyard Kipling
If you hit a pony over the nose at the outset of your acquaintance, he may not love you but he will take a deep interest in your movements ever afterwards
Many wear the robes, but few walk the Way." The Lama in Kim
Rudyard Kipling
Holden went to his bungalow and began to understand that he was not alone in the world, and also that he was afraid for the sake of another, -- which is the most soul-satisfying fear known to man.
Rudyard Kipling
One can’t prescribe books, even the best books, to people unless one knows a good deal about each individual person.
Rudyard Kipling
If a man can hear the truth he's spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..........
Rudyard Kipling
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;
Too much work and too much energy kill a man just as effectively as too much assorted vice or too much drink
Rudyard Kipling
Whatever he knows of his weaknesses, Private Mulvaney is wholly ignorant of his strength.
Rudyard Kipling
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And hold on when there's nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!
When a man does good work out of all proportion to his pay, in seven cases out of nine there is a woman at the back of the virtue.
The two exceptions must have suffered from sunstroke.
Rudyard Kipling
The reason the beasts give among themselves is that Man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living things,
Rudyard Kipling
Body and spirit, I surrendered whole, To harsh Instructors- and received a soul.
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
Rudyard Kipling
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!
Ye've a furtive look in your eye - a furtive, sneakin', poachin' look in your eye, that 'ud ruin the reputation of an archangel!
Rudyard Kipling
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
; Theirs names are What and Why and When And How And Where and Who. )
