If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“Common Form,” The Years Between (1919)
Quotations by:
Kipling, Rudyard
We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray,
Baa-aa-aa!
Gentlemen rankers out on a spree,
Damned from here to Eternity.
God ha’ mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
Though I’ve belted you an’ flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“Gunga Din,” st. 5 (1892)
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting, too ….
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same ….
Everyone is more or less mad on one point.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“On the Strength of a Likeness”
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!
I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“Surgeons and the Soul,” speech, Royal College of Surgeons (14 Feb 1923)
(Source)
There are things in the breast of mankind which are best
In darkness and secrecy hid;
For you never can tell, when you’ve opened a hell,
How soon you can put back the lid.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“The Sons of the Suburbs” (1916)
(Source)
On bloodthirstiness in war by previously peaceful people.
Originally written for the Christmas 1916 issue of Blighty, a magazine for servicemen. It was rejected, eventually to be published in the Sunday Pictorial (19 Jan 1936). It was never included by Kipling in any of his collections.
Take up the White Man’s burden —
Send forth the best ye breed —
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild —
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“The White Man’s Burden,” st. 1 (1899)
By all ye cry and whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“The White Man’s Burden”
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“The Young British Soldier” (1895)
For it’s Tommy this, and Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out, the brute!’
But it’s ‘Saviour of ‘is country’ when the guns begin to shoot.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“Tommy,” Barrack-Room Ballads (1893)
All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“We and They” (1.3), Debits and Credits (1919-26)
Four things greater than all things are, —
Women and Horses and Power and War.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“The Ballad of the King’s Jest,” st. 5
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“The Law of the Jungle,” The Second Jungle Book (1899)
I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn’t explain away afterwards.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
(Attributed)
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody — it saves so much trouble.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
(Attributed)
White hands cling to the bridle rein,
Slipping the spur from the booted heel;
Tenderest voices cry ‘Turn again!’
Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel;
Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels fastest who travels alone.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
(Attributed)
Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
(Attributed)
A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.
For Fiction is Truth’s elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till somebody had told a story.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
A Book of Words, ch. 24 “Fiction” (1928)
He wrapped himself in quotations — as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
Many Inventions, “The Finest Story in the World” (1893)
(Source)
The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool!
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
Plain Tales from the Hills, “Three and — an Extra” (1888)
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: —
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
School History, “Dane-Geld (A.D. 980-1016),” st. 3-4 (1911) [with C.R.L. Fletcher]
(Source)
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
School History, “Dane-Geld (A.D. 980-1016)” (1911) [with C. Fletcher]
Every nation, like every individual, walks in a vain show — else it could not live with itself — but I never got over the wonder of a people who, having extirpated the aboriginals of their continent more completely than any modern race had ever done, honestly believed that they were a godly little New England community, setting examples to brutal mankind.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
Something of Myself, ch. 15 (1937)
More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
The Phantom ‘Rickshaw
All the people like us are We, and everyone else is They.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
We and They (1926)