Rudyard Kipling

“Across a world where all men grieveAnd grieving strive the more,The great days range like tides and leaveOur dead on every shore.”

“Cross that rules the Southern Sky!Stars that sweep, and turn, and flyHear the Lovers' Litany: -'Love like ours can never die!”

“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”

“And if you expect you'll gain anything from us by your way of approachin' us, you're jolly well mistaken. That's all. Good-night.'They clattered upstairs, injured virtue on every inch of their backs.'But - but what the dickens have we done?' said Harrison, amazedly, to Craye.'I don't know. Only - it always happens that way when one has anything to do with them. They're so beastly plausible.”

“Well-meanin' man. Did it all for the best." Stalky curled gracefully round the stair-rail. "Head in a drain-pipe. Full confession in the left boot.”

“Mad! Quite mad!' said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting strange beasts. 'Beetle reads an ass called Brownin', and M'Turk reads an ass called Ruskin; and-' 'Ruskin isn't an ass,' said M'Turk. 'He's almost as good as the Opium-Eater. He says we're "children of noble races, trained by surrounding art." That means me, and the way I decorated the study when you two badgers would have stuck up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a noble race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading or I'll shove a pilchard down your neck!”

“He has oppressed Beetle, M'Turk, and me, privatim et seriatim, one by one, as he could catch us. But now he has insulted Number Five up in the music-room, and in the presence of these - these ossifers of the Ninety-third, wot look like hairdressers. Binjimin, we must make him cry "Capivi!"'Stalky's reading did not include Browning or Ruskin.”

“It seems - and who so astonished as they? - that they had held back material facts; that they were guilty of both suppressio veri and suggestio falsi (well-known gods against whom they often offended); further, that they were malignant in their dispositions, untrustworthy in their characters, pernicious and revolutionary in their influences, abandoned to the devils of wilfulness, pride, and a most intolerable conceit. Ninthly, and lastly, they were to have a care and to be very careful.”

“Ye've a furtive look in your eye - a furtive, sneakin', poachin' look in your eye, that 'ud ruin the reputation of an archangel!”

“Stalky,' in their school vocabulary, meant clever, well-considered and wily, as applied to plans of action; and 'stalkiness' was the one virtue Corkran toiled after.”

“I've never done any cattle-liftin', but it seems to me-e-e that one might just as well be stalky about a thing as not.”

“I have seen something of this world," she said over the trays, "and there are but two sorts of women in it-- those who take the strength out of a man, and those who put it back. Once I was that one, and now I am this.”

“And it is I, Raksha [The Demon], who answers. The man’s cub is mine, Lungri–mine to me! He shall not be killed. He shall live to run with the Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter of little naked cubs–frog-eater– fish-killer–he shall hunt thee!”

“How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is eternally pestered by women? There was that girl at the Akrola by the Ford; and there was the scullion's wife behind the dovecote -- not counting the others -- and now comes this one! When I was a child it was well enough, but now I am a man and they will not regard me as a man. Walnuts indeed! Ho! Ho! It is almonds in the Plains!”

“All good people agree, And all good people say,All nice people, like Us, are We And every one else is They:But if you cross over the sea, Instead of over the way,You may end by (think of it!) looking on We As only a sort of They!”

“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.”

“Too much work and too much energy kill a man just as effectively as too much assorted vice or too much drink”

“Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro—And what should they know of England who only England know?The English Flag, Stanza 1 (1891)”

“There is no one to touch Jane when you're in a tight place.”

“All the people like us are we, and everyone else is they.”

“You must not forget the suspenders, Best Beloved.”

“If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And hold on when there's nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: "Hold on!”

“Cites and Thrones and PowersStand in Time's eyeWhich daily die;But, as new buds put forthTo glad new men, Out of the spend and unconsidered Earth,The cities will rise again”

“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!”

“What is this," said the leopard,"that is so 'sclusively dark, and yet so full of little pieces of light?”

“Hear and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was: O my Best Beloved, when the tame animals were wild.”

“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.”

“Now whither does THIS trail lead?" Kaa's voice was gentler. "Not a moon since there was a Manling with a knife threw stones at my head and called me bad little tree-cat names, because I lay asleep in the open.”

“Outsong in the Jungle[Baloo:] For the sake of him who showedOne wise Frog the Jungle-Road,Keep the Law the Man-Pack makeFor thy blind old Baloo's sake!Clean or tainted, hot or stale,Hold it as it were the Trail,Through the day and through the night,Questing neither left nor right.For the sake of him who lovesThee beyond all else that moves,When thy Pack would make thee pain,Say: "Tabaqui sings again."When thy Pack would work thee ill,Say: "Shere Khan is yet to kill."When the knife is drawn to slay,Keep the Law and go thy way. (Root and honey, palm and spathe, Guard a cub from harm and scathe!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour go with thee![Kaa:] Anger is the egg of Fear--Only lidless eyes see clear.Cobra-poison none may leech--Even so with Cobra-speech.Open talk shall call to theeStrength, whose mate is Courtesy.Send no lunge beyond thy length.Lend no rotten bough thy strength.Gauge thy gape with buck or goat,Lest thine eye should choke thy throat.After gorging, wouldst thou sleep ?Look thy den be hid and deep,Lest a wrong, by thee forgot,Draw thy killer to the spot.East and West and North and South,Wash thy hide and close thy mouth. (Pit and rift and blue pool-brim, Middle-Jungle follow him!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour go with thee![Bagheera:] In the cage my life began;Well I know the worth of Man.By the Broken Lock that freed--Man-cub, ware the Man-cub's breed!Scenting-dew or starlight pale,Choose no tangled tree-cat trail.Pack or council, hunt or den,Cry no truce with Jackal-Men.Feed them silence when they say:"Come with us an easy way."Feed them silence when they seekHelp of thine to hurt the weak.Make no bandar's boast of skill;Hold thy peace above the kill.Let nor call nor song nor signTurn thee from thy hunting-line. (Morning mist or twilight clear, Serve him, Wardens of the Deer!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour go with thee![The Three:] On the trail that thou must treadTo the threshold of our dread,Where the Flower blossoms red;Through the nights when thou shalt liePrisoned from our Mother-sky,Hearing us, thy loves, go by;In the dawns when thou shalt wakeTo the toil thou canst not break,Heartsick for the Jungle's sake; Wood and Water, Wind air Tree, Wisdom, Strength, and Courtesy, Jungle-Favour go with thee!”

“The Man went to sleep in front of the fire ever so happy; but the Woman sat up, combing her hair. She took the bone of the shoulder of mutton – the big fat blade bone – and she looked at the wonderful marks on it, and she threw more wood on the fire, and she made a Magic. She made the first Singing Magic in the world.”

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

“We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.”

“At twenty the things for which one does not care a damn should, properly, be many.”

“All we have of freedomAll we use or knowThis our fathers bought for usLong and long ago”

“O it's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and Tommy 'ow's your soul/But it's thin red line of heroes when the drums begin to roll.”

“Now India is a place beyond all others where one must not take things too seriously—the midday sun always excepted.”

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

“There is but one task for all --One life for each to give.What stands if Freedom fall?"[For All We Have and Are]”

“God help us for we knew the worst too young.”

“Open the old cigar-box .....let me consider anew..... Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you? A million surplus Maggies are willing 'o bear the yoke; And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke. Light me another Cuba..... I hold to my first-sworn vows, If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse!”

“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!”

“The glory of the garden lies in more than meets the eye.”

“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.”

“Only the keeper seesthat,where the ring-dove broodsand the badgers roll at ease,there was once a road through the woods”

“No doubt but ye are the People - absolute, strong and wise;Whatever your hear has desired ye have not withheld from your eyes.On your own heads, in your own hands, the sin and the saving lies!”

“What is a woman that you forsake herAnd the hearth fire and the home acreTo go with that old grey widow-maker?”

“It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilised Eastern instincts, such as falling in love at first sight.”

“Something I owe to the soil that grew—More to the life that fed—But most to Allah who gave me twoSeparate sides to my head.”

“When young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion and despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge. Though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach faith where no faith was. ”

“His line was the jocundly-sentimental Wardour Street brand of adventure, told in a style that exactly met, but never exceeded, every expectation.”