Rudyard Kipling Quotes - Page 12

If a man brings a good mind to what he reads he may become, as it were, the spiritual descendant to some extent of great men, and this link, this spiritual hereditary tie, may help to just kick the beam in the right direction at a vital crisis; or may keep him from drifting through the long slack times when, so to speak, we are only fielding and no balls are coming our way.

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

Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?

What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth point goes.

Adam was a gardener, and God, who made him, sees that half of all good gardening is done upon the knees.

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind.

It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to his hand on the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresail scythed back and forth against the blue sky.

You perceive, do you not, that our national fairy tales reflect the inmost desires of the Briton and the Gaul?

There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and woman to fill our day; But when we are certain of sorrow in store, Why do we always arrange for more? Brothers & Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

The white moth to the closing vine, The bee to the open clover, And the Gypsy blood to the Gypsy blood Ever the wide world over.

The beasts are very wise, Their mouths are clean of lies, They talk one to the other, Bullock to bullock brothers Resting after their labors, Each in stall with his neighbors, But man with goad and whip, Breaks up their fellowship, Shouts in their silky ears Filling their soul with fears. When he has plowed the land, He says: "they understand." But the beasts in stall together, Freed from the yoke and tether, Say as the torn flank smoke: "Nay, 'twas the whip that spoke."

We have done with Hope and Honour. we are lost to Love and Truth, We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung; And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth. God help us, for we knew the worst too young!

It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening.

They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods

Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.

Sing, for faith and hope are high- None so true as you and I- Sing the Lovers' Litany: "Love like ours can never die!"

The heart of a man to the heart of a maid- Light of my tents, be fleet- Morning awaits at the end of the world, And the world is all at our feet.

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.

I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chains - I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs. I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar cane; I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs. I will go out until the day, until the morning break - Out to the wind's untainted kiss, the water's clean caress; I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket stake. I will revisit my lost love and playmates masterless!

Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep

If I were hanged on the highest hill, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! I know whose love would follow me still Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

Gentleman-rankers out on the spree, damned from here to Eternity.

No one as yet has approached the management of New York in a proper spirit; that is to say, regarding it as the shiftless outcome of squalid barbarism and reckless extravagance. No one is likely to do so, because reflections on the long narrow pig-trough are construed as malevolent attacks against the spirit and majesty of the American people, and lead to angry comparisons.

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!