Best 284 quotes of Rudyard Kipling on MyQuotes

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.

A boy of to-day is affected by every change of tone and gust of opinion, so that he lies even when he desires to speak the truth.

A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle, Manling.

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

After violent emotion most people and all boys demand food.

Ah! What avails the classic bent And what the cultured word, Against the undoctored incident That actually occurred? And what is Art whereto we press Through paint and prose and rhyme- When Nature in her nakedness Defeats us every time?

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.

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!

All the money in the world is no use to a man or his country if he spends it as fast as he makes it. All he has left is his bills and the reputation for being a fool.

All the people like us are we, and everyone else is They.

All things considered, there are only two kinds of men in the world: those that stay at home and those that do not.

All we have of freedom All we use or know This our fathers bought for us Long and long ago

Also, we will make promise. So long as The Blood endures, I shall know that your good is mine: ye shall feel that my strength is yours: In the day of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all, That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall.

A man's mind is wont to tell him more than seven watchmen sitting in a tower.

An angry skipper makes an unhappy crew.

And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose, And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows.

And the end of the fight is tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, and the epitaph drear, "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves 'It's pretty, but is it Art?'

And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth; Four things greater than all things are Women and Horses and Power and War.

And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden, You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.

(An unhappy childhood was not) an unsuitable preparation for my future, in that it demanded a constant wariness, the habit of observation, and the attendance on moods and tempers; the noting of discrepancies between speech and action; a certain reserve of demeanour; and automatic suspicion of sudden favours.

Any fool can waste, any fool can muddle, but it takes something of a man to save, and the more he saves the more of a man does it make of him.

A people always ends by resembling its shadow.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race... and the hearts of the meanest were humbled.

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.

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

As the dawn comes up like thunder.

A tale from which pieces have been raked out is like a fire that has been poked. One does not know the operation has been performed, but everyone feels the effect.

A Time For Prayer "In times of war and not before, God and the soldier we adore. But in times of peace and all things righted, God is forgotten and the soldier slighted." -Rudyard Kipling

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

At two o'clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen, You will hear the feet of the Wind that is going to call the sun. And the trees in the Shadow rustle and the trees in the moonlight glisten, And though it is deep, dark night, you feel that the night is done.

A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.

Being kissed by a man who didn't wax his moustache was-like eating an egg without salt.

Believe the best of everybody.

Be slow to judge for we know little of what has been done and nothing of what has been resisted.

Bite on the bullet, old man, and don't let them think you're afraid.

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?

Borrow trouble for yourself, if that's your nature, but don't lend it to your neighbours.

Both triumph and disaster are impostors.

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind.

But remember please, the Law by which we live, we are not built to comprehend a lie, we can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die.

But till we are built like angels, with hammer and chisel and pen, we will work for ourself and a woman, forever and ever, Amen.

Call a truce, then, to our labors - let us feast with friends and neighbors, 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.

Cat said, 'I am not a friend, and I am not a Servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your Cave.'

Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!

Cities and Thrones and Powers Stand in Time's eye, Almost as long as flowers, Which daily die