Rudyard Kipling Quotes

She read a little of it. I give her review verbatim:—"Oh, your book? It's all about those how-wid Wajahs. I didn't understand it."

For all we take we must pay, but the price is cruel high.

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!

When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
And the trunks begin to slide;
When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,
And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,
And you aren't waked or washed or dressed,
Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed)
You're ‘Fifty North and Forty West!'

I have written the tale of our life For a sheltered people's mirth,
In jesting guise—but ye are wise, And ye know what the jest is worth.

Body and spirit I surrendered whole
To harsh instructors—and received a soul...
If mortal man could change me through and through
From all I was—What may the God not do?

For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we take tea with a few guns, o' course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an' surrender it's worse if you fights or you runs:
You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves, but you can't get away from the guns!

There are only two divisions in the world to-day — human beings and Germans. And the German knows it. Human beings have long ago sickened of him and everything connected with him,of all he does, says, thinks and believes.

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.

'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor
With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead?
She 'as ships on the foam—she 'as millions at 'ome,
An' she pays us poor beggars in red.

Call a truce, then, to our labours let us feast with friends and neighbours,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For if “faint and forced the laughter,” and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.

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

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

Now this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back — For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch.
In the taking of it breathe
Prayer for all who lie beneath.