Top 400 Rudyard Kipling Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade.”

— Rudyard Kipling

302. “And the Eldest Magician said, ‘How wise are little children who see and are silent!”

— Rudyard Kipling

303. “I wish to eat,” said Mowgli. “I am a stranger in this part of the jungle. Bring me food, or give me leave to hunt here.”

— Rudyard Kipling

304. “Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shere Khan.”

— Rudyard Kipling

305. “Holden found one helpless little hand that closed feebly on his finger. And the clutch ran through his body till it settled about his heart. Till then his sole thought had been for Ameera. He began to realise that there was some one else in the world,...”

— Rudyard Kipling

306. “After violent emotion most people and all boys demand food.”

— Rudyard Kipling

307. “Well,” said Rikki-tikki, and his tail began to fluff up again, “marks or no marks, do you think it is right for you to eat fledglings out of a nest?”

— Rudyard Kipling

308. “She walked on and on till she melted out of the picture – like – like a shadow jumping over a candle...”

— Rudyard Kipling

309. “Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end; Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise, Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice.”

— Rudyard Kipling

310. “Many wear the robes, but few walk the Way.”

— Rudyard Kipling

311. “A liar only lies when he hopes to be believed.”

— Rudyard Kipling

312. “Badly-treated children have a clear notion of what they are likely to get if they betray the secrets of a prison-house before they are clear of it.”

— Rudyard Kipling

313. “Well, I believe in miracles, so it comes to.”

— Rudyard Kipling

314. “Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all his life received a direct order – never, at least, without long, and sometimes tearful, explanations of the advantages of obedience and the reasons for the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of breaking his spirit, which, perhaps, was the reason that she herself walked on the edge of nervous prostration.”

— Rudyard Kipling

315. “And that is how Mowgli was entered into the Seeonee Wolf Pack for the price of a bull and on Baloo’s good word. Now.”

— Rudyard Kipling

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

— Rudyard Kipling

317. “When little boys have learned a new bad word they are never happy till they have chalked it up on a door. And this also is Literature.”

— Rudyard Kipling

318. “No man’s cub can run with the people of the jungle,” howled Shere Khan. “Give.”

— Rudyard Kipling

319. “You sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces over all the mean worry of housekeeping.”

— Rudyard Kipling

320. “So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle from that day on. But he was not always alone, because years afterward he became a man and married. But that is a story for grown-ups.”

— Rudyard Kipling

321. “But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.”

— Rudyard Kipling

322. “Burmese babies – fat, little, brown little divils, as.”

— Rudyard Kipling

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

— Rudyard Kipling

324. “I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it.”

— Rudyard Kipling

325. “Fit to do anything,” said the Second-in-Command enthusiastically. “But it seems to me they’re a thought too young and tender for the work in hand. It’s bitter cold up at the Front now.” “They’re sound enough,” said the Colonel. “We must take our chance of sick casualties.”

— Rudyard Kipling

326. “For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, they arrive at their conclusions, largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; but sometimes in a smoking room, one learns why things were done.”

— Rudyard Kipling

327. “Most amusements only mean trying to win another person’s money.”

— Rudyard Kipling

328. “That was our first step toward better acquaintance. He would call on me sometimes in the evenings instead of running about London with his fellow-clerks; and before long, speaking of himself as a.”

— Rudyard Kipling

329. “Leave him alone, he’s as mad as a hatter!”

— Rudyard Kipling

330. “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.”

— Rudyard Kipling

331. “Then he jumped. The head was lying a little clear of the water jar, under the curve of it; and, as his teeth met, Rikki braced his back against the bulge of the red earthenware to hold down the head.”

— Rudyard Kipling

332. “The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason, forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe.”

— Rudyard Kipling

333. “Once there was The People – Terror gave it birth.”

— Rudyard Kipling

334. “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.”

— Rudyard Kipling

335. “The victory is only a matter of quickness of eye and quickness of foot–snake’s blow against mongoose’s jump–and as no eye can follow the motion of a snake’s head when it strikes, this makes things much more wonderful than any magic herb.”

— Rudyard Kipling

336. “Who goes to the hills, goes to his mother.”

— Rudyard Kipling

337. “Witta feared nothing – except to be poor.”

— Rudyard Kipling

338. “They did not hang medals, in those days, on all who by accident had heard a gun fired.”

— Rudyard Kipling

339. “One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across the country, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping forward of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels.”

— Rudyard Kipling

340. “I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our Pack or in my time,” said Father Wolf. “He is altogether without hair, and I could kill him with a touch of my foot. But see, he looks up and is not afraid.”

— Rudyard Kipling

341. “We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be true,” they shouted.”

— Rudyard Kipling

342. “Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?”

— Rudyard Kipling

343. “God He knows we need men more and more in the Game.”

— Rudyard Kipling

344. “Now I see, however,‘ – he exhaled smoke slowly – ‘that it is with them as with all men – in certain matters they are wise, and in others most foolish. Very foolish it is to use the wrong word to a stranger; for though the heart may be clean of offence, how is the stranger to know that? He is more like to search truth with a dagger.”

— Rudyard Kipling

345. “Remember, Mother, it is always the seventh wave that goes farthest up the beach.”

— Rudyard Kipling

346. “Those who beg in silence starve in silence,’ said Kim, quoting a native proverb.”

— Rudyard Kipling

347. “They looked at one another and up and down, and they wondered. For the ways of elephants are beyond the wit of any man, black or white, to fathom.”

— Rudyard Kipling

348. “Then Kotick roared to the seals: “I’ve done my best for you these five seasons past. I’ve found you the island where you’ll be safe, but unless your heads are dragged off your silly necks you won’t believe. I’m going to teach you now. Look out for yourselves!”

— Rudyard Kipling

349. “The Song of Mowgli – I, Mowgli, am singing. Let the jungle listen to the things I have done. Shere Khan said he would kill – would kill! At the gates in the twilight he would kill Mowgli, the Frog!”

— Rudyard Kipling

350. “Men often do their best work blind, for some one else’s sake.”

— Rudyard Kipling