Rudyard Kipling Quotes

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.

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.

Many religious people are deeply suspicious. They seem—for purely religious purposes, of course—to know more about iniquity than the unregenerate.

You may talk o' gin and beer
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.

He travels the fastest who travels alone.

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

the immeasurable gulf that lies between the races in all things, you would see how it comes to pass that the Englishman is prone to despise the natives-(I must use that misleading term for brevity's sake)-and how, except in the matter of trade, to have little or nothing in common with him. ... Now this is a wholly wrong attitude of mind but it's one that a Briton who washes, and don't take bribes, and who thinks of other things besides intrigue and seduction most naturally falls into. When he does, goodbye to his chances of attempting to understand the people of the land.

A black shadow dropped down into the circle. It was Bagheera the Black Panther, inky black all over, but with the panther markings showing up in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk. Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path, for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.

* 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!

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.

I keep six honest serving-men:
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Where and When
And How and Why and Who.

But he couldn't lie if you paid him and he'd starve before he stole.

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

Everyone is more or less mad on one point.

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