The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (53 page)

heart,

Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it

Art?"

Barrack-Room Ballads (1892) "The Conundrum of the Workshops"

We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the

cart;

But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it

Art?"

Barrack-Room Ballads (1892) "The Conundrum of the Workshops"

Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro--

And what should they know of England who only England know?--

The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag.

Barrack-Room Ballads (1892) "The English Flag"

For the sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!

Barrack-Room Ballads (1892) "Tomlinson"

There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake,

Or the way of a man with a maid;

But the sweetest way to me is a ship's upon the sea

In the heel of the North -East Trade.

Barrack-Room Ballads (1892) "L'Envoi"

What the horses o' Kansas think to-day, the horses of America will think

tomorrow; an' I tell you that when the horses of America rise in their

might, the day o' the Oppressor is ended.

The Day's Work (1898) "A Walking Delegate"

The toad beneath the harrow knows

Exactly where each tooth-point goes;

The butterfly upon the road

Preaches contentment to that toad.

Departmental Ditties (1886) "Pagett, MP"

A Nation spoke to a Nation,

A Throne sent word to a Throne:

"Daughter am I in my mother's house,

But mistress in my own.

The gates are mine to open,

As the gates are mine to close,

And I abide by my Mother's House."

Said our Lady of the Snows.

Departmental Ditties (1898 US ed.) "Our Lady of the Snows"

Who hath desired the Sea?--the sight of salt water unbounded--

The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber

wind-hounded?

The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and

growing--

Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing.

The Five Nations (1903) "The Sea and the Hills"

And here the sea-fogs lap and cling

And here, each warning each,

The sheep-bells and the ship-bells ring

Along the hidden beach.

The Five Nations (1903) "Sussex"

God gives all men all earth to love,

But since man's heart is small,

Ordains for each one spot shall prove

Belov�d over all.

Each to his choice, and I rejoice

The lot has fallen to me

In a fair ground--in a fair ground--

Yea, Sussex by the sea!

The Five Nations (1903) "Sussex"

Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls

With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the

goals.

The Five Nations (1903) "The Islanders"

We're foot--slog--slog--slog--sloggin' over Africa!--

Foot--foot--foot--foot--sloggin' over Africa--

(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up and down again!)

There's no discharge in the war!

The Five Nations (1903) "Boots" (for the last line, cf. Oxford

Dictionary of Quotations (1979) 55:25)

An' it all goes into the laundry,

But it never comes out in the wash,

'Ow we're sugared about by the old men

('Eavy-sterned amateur old men!)

That 'amper an' 'inder an' scold men

For fear o' Stellenbosh!

The Five Nations (1903) "Stellenbosh"

For all we have and are,

For all our children's fate,

Stand up and take the war.

The Hun is at the gate!

For All We Have and Are (1914) p. 1

There is but one task for all--

For each one life to give.

What stands if freedom fall?

Who dies if England live?

For All We Have and Are (1914) p. 2

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.

History of England (1911) "Dane-Geld"

"Oh, where are you going to, all you Big Steamers,

With England's own coal, up and down the salt seas?"

"We are going to fetch you your bread and your butter,

Your beef, pork, and mutton, eggs, apples, and cheese."

History of England (1911) "Big Steamers"

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,

Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,

With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;

But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

History of England (1911) "The Glory of the Garden"

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made

By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,

While better men than we go out and start their working lives

At grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner-knives.

History of England (1911) "The Glory of the Garden"

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees

That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,

So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray

For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

History of England (1911) "The Glory of the Garden"

Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world.

In Black and White (1888) "On the City Wall"

"We be one blood, thou and I," Mowgli answered. "I take my life from thee

to-night. My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry, O Kaa."

Jungle Book (1894) "Kaa's Hunting"

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

The Jungle Book (1894) "Road Song of the Bandar-Log"

You must not forget the suspenders, Best Beloved.

Just So Stories (1902) "How the Whale got his Throat"

Then the Whale stood up on his Tail and said, "I'm hungry." And the small

'Stute Fish said in a small 'stute voice, "Noble and generous Cetacean,

have you ever tasted Man?" "No," said the Whale. "What is it like?"

"Nice," said the small 'Stute Fish. "Nice but nubbly."

Just So Stories (1902) "How the Whale got his Throat"

He had his Mummy's leave to paddle, or else he would never have done it,

because he was a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity.

Just So Stories (1902) "How the Whale got his Throat"

The Camel's hump is an ugly lump

Which well you may see at the Zoo;

But uglier yet is the hump we get

From having too little to do.

Just So Stories (1902) "How the Camel got his Hump"

We get the hump--

Cameelious hump--

The hump that is black and blue!

Just So Stories (1902) "How the Camel got his Hump"

The cure for this ill is not to sit still,

Or frowst with a book by the fire;

But to take a large hoe and a shovel also,

And dig till you gently perspire.

Just So Stories (1902) "How the Camel got his Hump"

But there was one Elephant--a new Elephant--an Elephant's Child--who was

full of 'satiable curtiosity, and that means he asked ever so many

questions.

Just So Stories (1902) "The Elephant's Child"

Then Kolokolo Bird said, with a mournful cry, "Go to the banks of the

great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees,

and find out."

Just So Stories (1902) "The Elephant's Child"

Then the Elephant's Child put his head down close to the Crocodile's

musky, tusky mouth, and the Crocodile caught him by his little nose. At

this, O Best Beloved, the Elephant's Child was much annoyed, and he said,

speaking through his nose, like this, "Led go! You are hurtig be!"

Just So Stories (1902) "The Elephant's Child"

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

Just So Stories (1902) "The Elephant's Child"

Yes, weekly from Southampton,

Great steamers, white and gold,

Go rolling down to Rio

(Roll down--roll down to Rio!).

And I'd like to roll to Rio

Some day before I'm old!

Just So Stories (1902) "Beginning of the Armadilloes"

But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself,

and all places were alike to him.

Just So Stories (1902) "The Cat that Walked by Himself"

And he went back through the Wet Wild Woods, waving his wild tail and

walking by his wild lone. But he never told anybody.

Just So Stories (1902) "The Cat that Walked by Himself"

When [Max] Aitken acquired the Daily Express his political views seemed to

Kipling to become more and more inconsistent, and one day Kipling asked

him what he was really up to. Aitken is supposed to have replied: "What I

want is power. Kiss 'em one day and kick 'em the next"; and so on. "I

see," said Kipling. "Power without responsibility: the prerogative of the

harlot throughout the ages." So, many years later, when [Stanley] Baldwin

deemed it necessary to deal sharply with such lords of the press, he

obtained leave of his cousin [Kipling] to borrow that telling phrase,

which he used to some effect on the 18th March, 1931, at...the old Queen's

Hall in Langham Place.

Speech by Earl Baldwin to the Kipling Society, 5 Oct. 1971, in Kipling

Journal Dec. 1971

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!

If I were drowned in the deepest sea,

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

I know whose tears would come down to me,

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine.

If I were damned of body and soul,

I know whose prayers would make me whole,

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine.

The Light That Failed (1891) dedication

The man who would be king.

Title of story (1888)

And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late

deceased,

And the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."

The Naulahka (1892) ch. 5

Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it

takes a very clever woman to manage a fool.

Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) "Three and--an Extra"

Every one is more or less mad on one point.

Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) "On the Strength of a Likeness"

Of all the trees that grow so fair,

Old England to adorn,

Greater are none beneath the Sun,

Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.

Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) "Tree Song"

England shall bide till Judgement Tide

By Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) "Tree Song"

What is a woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) "Harp Song of the Dane Women"

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,

Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,

Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie.

Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Five and twenty ponies,

Trotting through the dark--

Brandy for the Parson,

'Baccy for the Clerk;

Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,

Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) "Smuggler's Song"

Land of our birth, we pledge to thee

Our love and toil in the years to be;

When we are grown and take our place,

As men and women with our race.

Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) "Children's Song"

Teach us Delight in simple things,

And Mirth that has no bitter springs;

Forgiveness free of evil done,

And Love to all men 'neath the sun!

Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) "Children's Song"

The tumult and the shouting dies--

The captains and the kings depart--

Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget--lest we forget!

Recessional, in The Times 17 July 1897

Far-called our navies melt away--

On dune and headland sinks the fire--

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh, and Tyre!

Recessional, in The Times 17 July 1897

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--

Such boasting as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law.

Recessional, in Times 17 July 1897

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.

Rewards and Fairies (1910) "Way through the Woods"

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,