Rudyard Kipling

When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey.

My heart is heavy with the things I do not understand.

A fool there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you and I!)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair
We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair
(Even as you and I!)

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

* For heathen heart that puts her trust
in reeking tube and iron shard,
all valiant dust that builds on dust
and guarding calls not thee to guard
for frantic boast and foolish word
thy mercy on thy people lord!

There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake,
Or the way of a man with a maid;
But the fairest way to me is a ship's upon the sea
In the heel of the North-East Trade.

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

“What are the bugles blowin' for?” said Files-on-Parade.
“To turn you out, to turn you out”, the Colour-Sergeant said.

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

And what did ye look they should compass?
Warcraft learned in a breath,
Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death?
So? And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize?
How are the beasts more worthy than the souls, your sacrifice?
But ye said, “Their valour shall show them”; but ye said, “The end is close.”
And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes:
And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride,
Ere—ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride!
Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls
With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.

A people always ends by resembling its shadow.

It was our fault, and our very great fault—and now we must turn it to use.
We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.

Ye know who use the Crystal Ball ⁠(To peer by stealth on Doom), ⁠The Shade that, shaping first of all, ⁠⁠Prepares an empty room. ⁠⁠⁠Then doth It pass ⁠⁠⁠Like breath from glass, ⁠But, on the extorted vision bowed intent, ⁠No man considers why It came or went.

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

'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse—soldier an' sailor too.