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Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English short-story writer, poet, novelist and journalist, born in India. In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first English language writer to receive it. He remains, over a century later, its youngest-ever recipient.

Quotes

 * I've just read that I'm dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers.
 * Letter to a magazine that had mistakenly published the announcement of his death.
 * Quoted by: Ashwin Sanghi, 13 STEPS TO BLOODY GOOD LUCK, westland ltd, 2014

 * There is no middle way in this war. We do not doubt our ultimate victory any more than we doubt the justice of our cause.It is not conceivable that we should fail, for if we fail the lights of freedom go out over the whole world. They may glimmer for a little in the western hemisphere,but a Germany dominating half the world by sea and land will most certainly extinguish them in every quarter where they have hitherto shone upon mankind, so that even the traditions of freedom will pass out of remembrance. If we do our duty we shall not fail.
 * Speech at the Dome, Brighton, 7 September 1914. Quoted in "Labor and the War in England" The Literary Digest magazine, September 26, 1914, p. 566-67. Also quoted in Caroline Playne, Society at War, 1914-1916, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1931.

 * There are only two divisions in the world to-day — human beings and Germans. And the German knows it. Human beings have long ago sickened of him and everything connected with him,of all he does, says, thinks and believes.
 * Speech at Southport, June 22, 1915. Quoted in The New York Times Current History, Volume 2; Volume 4. New York Times Company, 1917. Also quoted in Paul Piazza, Christopher Isherwood: Myth and Anti-Myth. Columbia University Press, 2010 (p.217).

 * It's a scientific-cum-sporting murder proposition with enough guns at last to account for the birds, and the Hun is having a very sickly time of it. He has the erroneous idea that he is being hurt, whereas he won't know what real pain means for a long time. I almost begin to hope that when we have done with him there will be very little Hun left.
 * Letter to L. C. Dunsterville, September 1916. Quoted in Lord Birkenhead, Rudyard Kipling. London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978 (p.271).

 * The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
 * As quoted from “Interview with an Immoral,” Arthur Gordon, Reader’s Digest (July 1959). Reprinted in the Kipling Society journal, “Six Hours with Rudyard Kipling”, Vol. XXXIV. No. 162 (June, 1967) pp. 5-8. Interview took place in June, 1935

 * "When you write `native, 'who do you mean? The Mahommedan who hates the Hindu; the Hindu who hates the Mahommedan; the Sikh who loathes both; or the semi-anglicised product of our Indian colleges who is hated and despised by Sikh, Hindu and Mahommedan."
 * "the immeasurable gulf that lies between the races in all things, you would see how it comes to pass that the Englishman is prone to despise the natives-(I must use that misleading term for brevity's sake)-and how, except in the matter of trade, to have little or nothing in common with him. ... Now this is a wholly wrong attitude of mind but it's one that a Briton who washes, and don't take bribes, and who thinks of other things besides intrigue and seduction most naturally falls into. When he does, goodbye to his chances of attempting to understand the people of the land."
 * "[T]he proper way to handle 'em is not by looking on 'em `as excitable masses of barbarism' (I speak for the Punjab only) or the `down trodden millions of Ind groaning under the heel of an alien and unsympathetic despotism,' but as men with a language of their own which it is your business to understand; and proverbs which it is your business to quote (this is a land of proverbs) and byewords and allusions which it is your business to master; and feelings which it is your business to enter into and sympathise with."
 * "[16 October 18951: it is my fortune to have been born and to a large extent brought up among those whom white men call `heathen'; and while I recognise the paramount duty of every white man to follow the teachings of his creed and conscience as `a debtor to do the whole law,' it seems to me cruel that white men, whose governments are armed with the most murderous weapons known to science, should amaze and confound their fellow creatures with a doctrine of salvation imperfectly understood by themselves and a code of ethics foreign to the climate and instincts of those races whose most cherished customs they outrage and whose gods they insult."
 * (From Sea to Sea vol. 2, p. 61): "Very many Americans have an offensive habit of referring to natives as `heathen.' Mahommedans and Hindus are heathen alike in their eyes."
 * "[W]e know nothing about their life which touches so intimately the White on the one hand and the Black on the other.... Wanted, therefore, a writer from among the Eurasians, who shall write so that men shall be pleased to read a story of Eurasian life; then outsiders will be interested in the People of India, and will admit that the race has possibilities."
 * quoted in Ibn, W. (2009). Defending the West: A critique of Edward Said's Orientalism. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books.

Departmental Ditties and other Verses (1886)

 * I have eaten your bread and salt. I have drunk your water and wine. The deaths ye died I have watched beside And the lives ye led were mine.
 * Prelude, Stanza 1.

 * I have written the tale of our life For a sheltered people's mirth, In jesting guise—but ye are wise, And ye know what the jest is worth.
 * Prelude Stanza 3.

 * A fool there was and he made his prayer (Even as you and I!) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair We called her the woman who did not care), But the fool he called her his lady fair (Even as you and I!)
 * The Vampire, Stanza 1.

 * Call a truce, then, to our labours let us feast with friends and neighbours, 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.
 * Christmas in India, Stanza 5.

 * The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road Preaches contentment to that toad.
 * Pagett M.P, prelude

 * And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.
 * The Betrothed, Stanza 25.

 * A scrimmage in a Border Station— A canter down some dark defile— Two thousand pounds of education Drops to a ten-rupee jezail— The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride, Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
 * Arithmetic on the Frontier, Stanza 3.

Recessional

 * God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle line, Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine— Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!
 * Stanza 1.

 * 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!
 * Stanza 2.

 * If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, Such boastings as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law — Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!
 * Stanza 4.

 * * For heathen heart that puts her trust in reeking tube and iron shard, all valiant dust that builds on dust and guarding calls not thee to guard for frantic boast and foolish word thy mercy on thy people lord!
 * Stanza 5.

Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)

 * It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts, such as falling in love at first sight.
 * Lispeth.

 * The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool!
 * Three and—an Extra.

 * Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears, and so preparing the way for you later on. Sisters are women first, and sisters afterwards; and you will find that you do yourself harm.
 * False Dawn.

 * Many religious people are deeply suspicious. They seem—for purely religious purposes, of course—to know more about iniquity than the unregenerate.
 * Watches of the Night.

 * Everyone is more or less mad on one point.
 * On the Strength of a Likeness.

 * He did his best to interest the girl in himself—that is to say, his work—and she, after the manner of women, did her best to appear interested in, what behind his back, she called "Mr. Wressley's Wajahs"; for she lisped very prettily. She did not understand one little thing about them, but she acted as if she did. Men have married on that sort of error before now.
 * Wressley of the Foreign Office.

 * She read a little of it. I give her review verbatim:—"Oh, your book? It's all about those how-wid Wajahs. I didn't understand it."
 * Wressley of the Foreign Office.

 * India, as everyone knows, is divided equally between jungle, tigers, cobras, cholera, and sepoys
 * 1987. Kipling, R. 'Yoked with an Unbeliever'. In Plain Tales from the Hills . Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1987. Quoted from    Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

Life's Handicap (1891)

 * East of Suez, some hold, the direct control of Providence ceases; Man being there handed over to the power of the Gods and Devils of Asia, and the Church of England Providence only exercising an occasional and modified supervision in the case of Englishmen.
 * The Mark of the Beast.

 * 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.
 * The Mark of the Beast.

 * 'Take your friend away. He has done with Hanuman, but Hanuman has not done with him.'
 * The Mark of the Beast.

Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

 * And oft-times cometh our wise Lord God, master of every trade, And tells them tales of His daily toil, of Edens newly made; And they rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid.
 * Dedication, Stanza 5.

 * I've taken my fun where I've found it; I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time.
 * The Ladies, Stanza I.

 * An' I learned about women from 'er.
 * The Ladies, ending line to Stanzas III, IV, and V.

 * I've taken my fun where I've found it, An' now I must pay for my fun, For the more you 'ave known o' the others The less will you settle to one.
 * The Ladies, Stanza VII.

 * For the colonel's lady an' Judy O'Grady, Are sisters under their skins.
 * The Ladies, Stanza VIII.

 * “What are the bugles blowin' for?” said Files-on-Parade. “To turn you out, to turn you out”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
 * Danny Deever, Stanza 1.

 * They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away, An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.
 * Danny Deever, Stanza 1.

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

 * We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints, Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints.
 * Tommy, Stanza 4.

 * For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “Chuck him out, the brute!” But it's “Saviour of 'is country” when the guns begin to shoot.
 * Tommy, Stanza 5.

 * So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man.
 * Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Stanza 1.

 * 'E's all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead.
 * ''Fuzzy-Wuzzy.

 * For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you! So when we take tea with a few guns, o' course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo! Jest send in your Chief an' surrender it's worse if you fights or you runs: You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves, but you can't get away from the guns!
 * Screw-Guns, Stanza 6.

 * You may talk o' gin and beer When you're quartered safe out 'ere, An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it; But when it comes to slaughter You will do your work on water, An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
 * Gunga Din, Stanza 1.

 * So I'll meet 'im later on At the place where 'e is gone— Where it's always double drill and no canteen. 'E'll be squattin' on the coals Givin' drink to poor damned souls, An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din! Yes, Din! Din! Din! You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din! Though I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
 * Gunga Din, Stanza 5.

 * 'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead? She 'as ships on the foam—she 'as millions at 'ome, An' she pays us poor beggars in red.
 * The Widow at Windsor, Stanza 1.

 * When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck, Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck, Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck And march to your front like a soldier. Front, front, front like a soldier...
 * Young British Soldier, Stanza 9.

 * If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white, Remember it's ruin to run from a fight: So take open order, lie down, and sit tight, And wait for supports like a soldier. Wait, wait, wait like a soldier...
 * Young British Soldier, Stanza 12.

 * 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. Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, So-oldier of the Queen!
 * Young British Soldier, Stanza 13.

 * Oh the road to Mandalay Where the flyin'-fishes play An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
 * Mandalay.

 * By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea, There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: “Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!”
 * Mandalay, Stanza 1.

 * Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, Where there aren't no Ten Commandments, an' a man can raise a thirst.
 * Mandalay, Stanza 6.

 * To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned, To my brethren in their sorrow overseas, Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed, And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
 * Gentlemen-Rankers, Stanza 1.

 * 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 the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!
 * Gentlemen-Rankers, refrain

 * 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!
 * Gentlemen-Rankers, Stanza 4.

 * For to admire an' for to see, For to be'old this world so wide— It never done no good to me, But I can't drop it if I tried!
 * For to Admire, Stanza 2.

The Jungle Book (1894)

 * ‘There is none like to me!' says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill; But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.
 * Kaa's hunting.

 * We be of one blood, ye and I.
 * Kaa's Hunting.

 * Brother, thy tail hangs down behind! This is the way of the Monkey-kind!
 * Road-Song of the Bandar-Log.

 * It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the mongoose family is “Run and find out,” and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose.
 * Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

 * If you read the old books of natural history, you will find they say that when the mongoose fights the snake and happens to get bitten, he runs off and eats some herb that cures him. That is not true. 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.
 * Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

The Second Jungle Book (1895)

 * Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the Law runneth forward and back;  For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
 * The Law of the Jungle, Stanzas 1 and 2.

 * When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail, Lie down till the leaders have spoken—it may be fair words shall prevail.
 * The Law of the Jungle, Stanza 6.

 * Now these are the Laws of the jungle, and many and mighty are they; But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is—Obey!
 * The Law of the Jungle, Stanza 19.

If— (1896)

 * Online text at Wikisource Audio version, on Youtube

 * 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, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same  If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools  If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss  If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the will which says to them: "Hold on!"  If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

The Seven Seas (1896)

 * We have fed our sea for a thousand years And she calls us, still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead.
 * The Song of the Dead, II, Stanza 1 (1896).

 * They change their skies above them, But not their hearts that roam!
 * The Native-Born, Stanza 2 (1895).

 * The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds— The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e gives 'er all she needs; But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun', They're just the same as you an' me a-plyin' up an' down!
 * The Liner She's a Lady, Stanza 1 (1895).

 * There's a Legion that never was 'listed, That carries no colours or crest, But, split in a thousand detachments, Is breaking the road for the rest.
 * The Lost Legion, Stanza 1 (1895).

 * But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came, And he told me in a vision of the night:— There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right!
 * In the Neolithic Age, Stanza 5 (1895).

 * For 'im that doth not work must surely die; But that's no reason man should labour all 'Is life on one same shift—life's none so long.
 * Sestina of the Tramp-Royal, Stanza 4 (1896).

 * It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world, Which you can read and care for just so long, But presently you feel that you will die Unless you get the page you're readin' done, An' turn another—likely not so good; But what you're after is to turn 'em all.
 * Sestina of the Tramp-Royal, Stanza 6.

 * Back to the Army again, sergeant, Back to the Army again: Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant, Out o' the cold an' the rain.
 * Back to the Army Again, refrain (1894).

 * 'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse—soldier an' sailor too.
 * "Soldier an' Sailor Too", Stanza 2 (1896).

 * I've taken my fun where I've found it; I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time; I've 'ad my pickin' o' sweet'earts, An' four o' the lot was prime. One was an 'arf-caste widow, One was a woman at Prome, One was the wife of a jemadar-sais, An' one is a girl at 'ome.
 * The Ladies, Stanza 1 (1895).

 * When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew!
 * L'Envoi, Stanza 1 (1896).

 * And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; 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!
 * L'Envoi, Stanza 3 (1896).

The White Man's Burden (1899)

 * 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. The White Man's Burden, Stanza 1 (1899).

 * Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror, And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain. The White Man's Burden, Stanza 2 (1899).

 * The White Man's Burden, (1899).

The Absent-Minded Beggar (1899)

 * When you've shouted "Rule Brittania": when you've sung "God Save the Queen," When you've finished killing Kruger with your mouth, Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine For a gentleman in khaki headed South?

Just So Stories (1902)

 * When the cabin port-holes are dark and green Because of the seas outside; When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between) And the steward falls into the soup-tureen, And the trunks begin to slide; When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap, And Mummy tells you to let her sleep, And you aren't waked or washed or dressed, Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed) You're ‘Fifty North and Forty West!'
 * How the Whale Got His Throat.

 * I keep six honest serving-men: (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Where and When And How and Why and Who.
 * The Elephant's Child.

 * I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.
 * The Cat that Walked by Himself.

The Five Nations (1903)

 * Full text at Wikisource: The Five Nations

(To peer by stealth on Doom), The Shade that, shaping first of all, Prepares an empty room. Then doth It pass Like breath from glass, But, on the extorted vision bowed intent, No man considers why It came or went.
 * Ye know who use the Crystal Ball
 * "Dedication"

Themselves with stranger eye, And the sport-making Gods of old, Like Samson slaying, die, Many shall hear The all-pregnant sphere, Bow to the birth and sweat, but — speech denied — Sit dumb or — dealt in part — fall weak and wide.
 * Before the years reborn behold
 * "Dedication"

The eternal balance swings; That winged men the Fates may breed So soon as Fate hath wings. These shall possess Our littleness, And in the imperial task (as worthy) lay Up our lives' all to piece one giant day.
 * Yet instant to fore-shadowed need
 * "Dedication"

Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)

 * She has no strong white arms to fold you, But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you— Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.
 * Harp Song of the Dane Women, Stanza 3 (1906).

 * Cities and Thrones and Powers, Stand in Time's eye, Almost as long as flowers, Which daily die: But, as new buds put forth To glad new men, Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth, The Cities rise again.
 * Cities and Thrones and Powers, Stanza 1 (1906).

 * Five and twenty ponies Trotting through the dark— Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk. Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie— Watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by!
 * A Smuggler's Song.

 * Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
 * A Tree Song,

Rewards and Fairies (1910)

 * Take of English earth as much As either hand may rightly clutch. In the taking of it breathe Prayer for all who lie beneath.
 * Epitaphs of the War, Stanza 1.

Epitaphs of the War (1914-1918) (1918)

 * If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.
 * Common Form

 * 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?
 * The Wonder

 * This man in his own country prayed we know not to what powers. We pray them to reward him for his bravery in ours.
 * Hindu Sepoy in France

 * From little towns in a far land we came, To save our honour and a world aflame. By little towns in a far land we sleep, And trust the world we won for you to keep.
 * Canadian Memorial (2)

 * I could not dig: I dared not rob: Therefore I lied to please the mob. Now all my lies are proved untrue And I must face the men I slew. What tale shall serve me here among Mine angry and defrauded young?
 * A Dead Statesman

Other works

 * But that's another story.
 * Soldiers Three, The Story of the Gadsbys, In Black and White (1888).

 * Being kissed by a man who didn't wax his moustache was like eating an egg without salt.
 * The Story of the Gadsbys (1888), "Poor Dear Mamma".

 * In the flush of the hot June prime, O'ersleek flood-tides afire, I hear him hurry the chime To the bidding of checked Desire; Till the sweated ringers tire And the wild bob-majors die. Could I wait for my turn in the godly choir? (Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!
 * The Bell Buoy.

 * Men and women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a creditable lie; but the house, which is their temple, cannot say anything save the truth of those who have lived in it.
 * "They," published in Traffics and Discoveries (1904)

 * Enough work to do, and strength enough to do the work.
 * A Doctor's Work, an address at Middlesex Hospital (October 1908).

 * Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
 * The Power of the Dog, Stanza 1 (1909).

 * 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.
 * The Puzzler, Stanza 3 (1909).

 * For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
 * The Female of the Species, Stanza 1 (1911).

 * 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, Stanza 1 (1914).

 * No easy hope or lies Shall bring us to our goal, But iron sacrifice Of body, will, and soul. There is but one task for all— One life for each to give. What stands if Freedom fall? Who dies if England live?
 * For All We Have and Are, Stanza 4.

 * 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.
 * The Gods of the Copybook Headings, Stanza 1 (1919).

 * Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
 * Speech, quoted in The Times (February 15, 1923).

 * Never again will I spend another winter in this accursed Bucket shop|bucketshop of a refrigerator called England.
 * Letter to Sidney Colvin (1928).

 * A people always ends by resembling its shadow.
 * Said to author and critic André Maurois c. 1930, on the subject of the transformation of Germany.
 * Quoted in Maurois, The Art of Writing, “The Writer's Craft,” sct. 2 (1960).

 * When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey.
 * Something of Myself for My Friends Known and Unknown, ch. 8 (1937).

 * Four things greater than all things are,— Women and Horses and Power and War.
 * The Ballad of the King's Jest, Stanza 4

 * Two things greater than all things are, The first is Love, and the second War.
 * The Ballad of the King's Jest, Stanza 9

 * There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, Or the way of a man with a maid; But the fairest way to me is a ship's upon the sea In the heel of the North-East Trade.
 * The Long Trail, Stanza 5.

 * 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!
 * The Glory of the Garden, Stanza 8.

 * Father, Mother, and Me, Sister and Auntie say All the people like us are We, And every one else is They.
 * We and They, Stanza 1.

 * Now I possess and am possessed of the land where I would be, And the curve of half Earth's generous breast shall soothe and ravish me!
 * The Prairie, Stanza 5.

 * 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! We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings— Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods!— Our touch can alter all created things, We are everything on earth—except The Gods!
 * The Secret of the Machines, Stanza 7.

 * Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes, It will vanish and the stars will shine again, Because, for all our power and weight and size, We are nothing more than children of your brain!
 * The Secret of the Machines, Stanza 8.

 * There rise her timeless capitals of Empires daily born, Whose plinths are laid at midnight, and whose streets are packed at morn; And here come hired youths and maids that feign to love or sin In tones like rusty razor-blades to tunes like smitten tin.
 * Naaman's Song, Stanza 2.

 * Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone.
 * Soldiers Three, The Winners (L'Envoi: What Is the Moral?), Stanza 1 (1888).

 * More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.
 * The Phantom 'Rickshaw (1888).

 * Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
 * The Ballad of East and West (1889).

 * For all we take we must pay, but the price is cruel high.
 * The Courting of Dinah Shadd (1890).

 * When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould; 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?”
 * The Conundrum of the Workshops, Stanza 1 (1890).

 * 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?”
 * The Conundrum of the Workshops, Stanza 6.

 * Bite on the bullet, old man, and don't let them think you're afraid.
 * The Light That Failed, ch. 11 (1890-1891).

 * San Francisco is a mad city—inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people, whose women are of a remarkable beauty.
 * American Notes—At the Golden Gate (1891).

 * Asia is not going to be civilised after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.
 * The Man Who Was (1891).

 * Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know?
 * The English Flag, Stanza 1 (1891).

 * “Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high “The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die— “The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!” And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.
 * Tomlinson, l. 7-10 (1891).

 * “Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed—go back with an open eye, “And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die: “That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one— “And the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!”
 * Tomlinson, l. 58-61.

 * If I were damned of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine.
 * Mother o' Mine (1891).

 * Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan    brown, For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the      Christian down; 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, ch. 5 (1892).

 * Ever the wide world over, lass, Ever the trail held true, Over the world and under the world, And back at the last to you.
 * The Gypsy Trail, Stanza 2 (1892).

 * When next he came to me he was drunk—royally drunk on many poets for the first time revealed to him. His pupils were dilated, his words tumbled over each other, and he wrapped himself in quotations—as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of emperors.
 * The Finest Story in the World (1893).

 * We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low. Will you never let us go?
 * Song of the Galley-Slaves, l. 1-2 (1893).

 * When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre, He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea; An' what he thought 'e might require, 'E went an' took—the same as me!
 * When 'Omer Smote 'is Bloomin' Lyre, Stanza 1 (1894).

 * A Nation spoke to a Nation, A Queen 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 set my house in order,' Said our Lady of the Snows.
 * Our Lady of the Snows, Stanza 1 (1898).

 * Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need.
 * The White Man's Burden, Stanza 1 (1899).

 * Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should, We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good.
 * The Lesson, Stanza 1 (1899-1902).

 * It was our fault, and our very great fault—and now we must turn it to use. We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.
 * The Lesson, Stanza 8 (1899-1902).

 * “True. True talk,” said Kim solemnly. “Fools speak of a cat when a woman is brought to bed, for instance. I have heard them.”
 * Kim, Chapter 8 (1901).

 * And what did ye look they should compass? Warcraft learned in a breath, Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death? So? And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize? How are the beasts more worthy than the souls, your sacrifice? But ye said, “Their valour shall show them”; but ye said, “The end is close.” And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes: And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride, Ere—ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride! 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 Islanders, l. 22-31 (1902).

 * 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.
 * The Islanders, l. 55-57.

 * God gave all men all earth to love, But since our hearts are small, Ordained for each one spot should prove Belovèd over all.
 * Sussex, Stanza 1 (1902).

 * 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 Sea and the Hills, Stanza 1 (1903).

 * Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges— Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!
 * The Explorer, Stanza 2 (1903).

 * Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again! There's no discharge in the war!
 * Boots, Stanza 1 (1903).

 * That's the secret. 'Tisn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walk down a street.
 * Mrs. Bathurst (1904).

 * I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all; to men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them.
 * King George V's Christmas broadcast, 1932

 * ... scandals are only increased by hushing them up.
 * The Gardener (1925).

 * ... it's always best to tell the truth.
 * The Gardener (1925).

 * Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.
 * "Fiction", speech to the Royal Society of Literature, June 1926; published in Writings on Writing: Rudyard Kipling (1996), ed. Sandra Kemp and Lisa Lewis, p. 80

Quotes about Kipling

 * His poems in their quantity, their limitation to one feeling at a time, have the air of brilliant tactical improvisations to overcome sudden unforeseen obstacles, as if, for Kipling, experience were not a seed to cultivate patiently and lovingly, but an unending stream of dangerous feelings to be immediately mastered as they appear.
 * W. H. Auden, Forewords and Afterwords, New York : Random House, 1973.

 * I can think of a number of poets who have written great poetry, only of a very few whom I should call great verse writers. And unless I am mistaken, Kipling's position in this class is not only high but unique.
 * T.S. Eliot, "In Praise of Kipling's Verse," Harper's Magazine, June-November 1942, p. 157.

 * Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known.
 * Henry James, letter to his brother William James (6 February 1892), quoted in Kipling: The Critical Heritage (1971), ed. R. L. Green, p. 68

 * Mr. Rudyard Kipling is distinguished above all things for his imperialistic views. Altho he has literary qualifications of the highest merit, it is to be regretted that he has devoted them to the propagation of warlike ideas and exhibited a most barbarous spirit of chauvinism during the Boer War.
 * Jean Jaurès, L'Humanité, 1907. Quoted in "Europe's Verdict on Kipling's Prize", The Literary Digest, January 11, 1908, (p. 58).

 * There are certain writers-Kipling is a very good case in point-he is an embarrassment partly because of his politics, but also partly because his greatest books are for children. Kim is a child's book. It is and it isn't. I read it first at ten, and I've read it ever since. But Kipling is not really a novelist, is he? He's a tale-teller, and he doesn't fit in the canon any more than Tolkien does, for different reasons. I think you might find other writers like that. Of course, Kipling's subjects are often exotic, they're not the ordinary subjects of literature, he personifies ships, his tales partake of fantasy and science fiction and all kinds of things. He didn't write within the realist canon. His stuff was odd. There are writers whom we don't think of as "paraliterary" writers, but who have suffered nearly as much from ignorance or neglect or our inability to know how to criticize them, which I think is one of the main problems...
 * 1994 interview in Conversations with Ursula Le Guin

 * Vladimir Nabokov-to me, his is not a good prose style...But then a writer like Kipling comes to mind, whose style is very idiosyncratic, rather strange, and, particularly in his finest things, in some of the children's books, is deliberately rather splendid and very rhythmical and totally oral. I love it.
 * 1988 interview in Conversations with Ursula Le Guin

 * The social attitudes of an author writing about animals always emerge with exceptional clarity. Kipling's stories are imperialistic, his mongoose belongs to the white man, it is the Englishman's servant. Only a European with a highly developed sense of his own responsibility toward life, with a cautious and aroused conscience, could write animal stories in the style of Pergaud. The weasel, the crow, and the magpie are his heroes. They serve no one, instead they introduce us to the basic tenors and joys of existence.
 * Osip Mandelstam LOUIS PERGAUD: STORIES FROM THE LIVES OF ANIMALS translated into English in The complete critical prose (1997)

 * Mr. Kipling's world is a barrack full of oaths and clatter of sabres ; but his language is copious, rich, sonorous. One is tempted to say that none since the Elizabethans has written so copiously. Others have written more beautifully, but no one that I can call to mind at this moment has written so copiously. Shelley and Wordsworth, Landor and Pater, wrote with part of the language; but who else, except Whitman, has written with the whole language since the Elizabethans?
 * George Moore, Avowals, London, Heinemann, 1919.

 * Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting. It is better to start by admitting that, and then to try to find out why it is that he survives while the refined people who have sniggered at him seem to wear so badly.
 * George Orwell, "Rudyard Kipling," Horizon, February, 1942.

 * In the stupid early years of this century, the blimps, having at last discovered someone who could be called a poet and who was on their side, set Kipling on a pedestal, and some of his more sententious poems, such as ‘If’, were given almost biblical status. But it is doubtful whether the blimps have ever read him with attention, any more than they have read the Bible. Much of what he says they could not possibly approve. Few people who have criticized England from the inside have said bitterer things about her than this gutter patriot.
 * George Orwell, "Rudyard Kipling," Horizon, February, 1942.

 * Kipling is the only English writer of our time who has added phrases to the language.
 * George Orwell, "Rudyard Kipling," Horizon, February, 1942.

 * Kipling has done more than any other since Disraeli to show the world that the British race is sound at core and that rust or dry rot are strangers to it.
 * Cecil Rhodes, quoted in J. G. McDonald, Rhodes: A Life. Geoffrey Bles, 1934

 * He [Kipling] is a stranger to me, but he is a most remarkable man — and I am the other one. Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.
 * Mark Twain, Mark Twain, a Biography : the Personal and Literary Life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, edited by Albert Bigelow Paine, Harper, 1935.

 * ...still more would I like to know about the brain history of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, whom also I have never met. He is to me the most incomprehensible of my contemporaries, with phases of real largeness and splendour and lapses to the quality of those mucky little sadists, Stalky and Co. ... He has an  immense vogue in the British middle-class and upper-class home ; he is the patron saint of cadet corps masters, an inexhaustive fount of sham manly sentiment, and one of the most potent forces in the shrivelling of the British political imagination during the past third of a century.
 * H. G. Wells, Experiment In Autobiography, Chapter 9. Victor Gollancz, 1934.

 * Kipling... brought a sense of religious destiny back into a disorganized world. He was able, in fact, to render an immense service to his age, and it is no wonder that in his later years, when it became apparent that that age had passed forever,he refused to recognize the change, and raised a disgruntled pretense that nothing was happening save an outburst of misconduct on the part of the intellectuals and the lower classes. It is no wonder that he should want to do so, human nature being as frail as it is; but it is surprising that the writer of the masterpiece Kim should have found himself able to do so.
 * Rebecca West, "Rudyard Kipling", The New Statesman, January 1936. Reprinted in Rebecca West: A Celebration, Penguin Books, 1978.

title: Rudyard Kipling


text:
Alfred Austin

Alfred Austin DL (30 May 1835 – 2 June 1913) was an English poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896.

The Golden Age: A Satire (1871)
London: Chapman and Hall, 1871
 * Then, without toil, by vale and mountain side, Men found their few and simple wants supplied; Plenty, like dew, dropped subtle from the air, And Earth's fair gifts rose prodigal as prayer. Love, with no charms except its own to lure, Was swiftly answered by a love as pure. No need for wealth; each glittering fruit and flower, Each star, each streamlet, made the maiden's dower.
 * pp. 2–3.

 * Lo, where huge London, huger day by day, O'er six fair counties spreads its hideous sway.
 * p. 66.

 * And Clara dies that Claribel may dance.
 * p. 75.

Savonarola (1881)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1881
 * Let your house Be spacious more than splendid, and be books And busts your most conspicuous furniture.
 * Lorenzo de' Medici in Act I, sc. i; p. 6.

 * Friendship craves The commerce of the mind, not the exchange Of emulous feasts that foster sycophants.
 * Lorenzo de' Medici in Act I, sc. i; pp. 6–7.

 * Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law, Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will.
 * Lorenzo de' Medici in Act I, sc. i; p. 14.

 * Friendship, 'tis said, is love without his wings, And friendship, sir, is sweet enough for me.
 * Candida to Valori in Act I, sc. ii; p. 35.

 * Death is the looking-glass of life wherein Each man may scan the aspect of his deeds.
 * Girolamo Savonarola in Act I, sc. iv; p. 49.

 * Your logic may be good, But dialectics never saved a soul.
 * Frà Domenico in Act II, sc. ix; p. 197.

 * […] there is no love, That merits such high christening, but is built Firm upon some foundation out of sight; God, country, virtue, something not ourself, To which ourself is nothing, save the proof Of its invisible sureness.
 * Candida to Valori in Act IV, sc. iv; p. 262.

 * Never fear to weep; For tears are summer showers to the soul, To keep it fresh and green.
 * Candida to Valori in Act IV, sc. iv; p. 264.

 * Who loves his country never forfeits heaven.
 * Candida to Valori in Act IV, sc. vi; p. 285.

Soliloquies in Song (1882)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1882
 * So, timely you came, and well you chose, You came when most needed, my winter rose. From the snow I pluck you, and fondly press Your leaves 'twixt the leaves of my leaflessness.
 * "My Winter Rose", stanza VII; p. 19.

 * Life seems like a haunted wood, where we tremble and crouch and cry.
 * "A Woman's Apology", stanza XI; p. 26

 * […] faded smiles oft linger in the face, While grief's first flakes fall silent on the head!
 * "Unseasonable Snows", line 13; p. 66.

At the Gate of the Convent (1885)
At the Gate of the Convent and Other Poems (London: Macmillan and Co., 1885)
 * My virgin sense of sound was steeped In the music of young streams; And roses through the casement peeped, And scented all my dreams.
 * "Prelude", stanza XI; p. ix.

 * I love the doubt, the dark, the fear, That still surroundeth all things here. I love the mystery, nor seek to solve; Content to let the stars revolve, Nor ask to have their meaning clear. Enough for me, enough to feel; To let the mystic shadows steal Into a land whither I cannot follow. To see the stealthy sunlight leave Dewy dingle, dappled hollow; To watch, when falls the hour of eve, Quiet shadows on a quiet hill; To watch, to wonder, and be still.
 * "Hymn to Death", Part IV, line 11; p. 41.

 * Why from the plain truth should I shrink? In woods men feel; in towns they think. Yet, which is best? Thought, stumbling, plods Past fallen temples, vanished gods, Altars unincensed, fanes undecked, Eternal systems flown or wrecked; Through trackless centuries that grant To the poor trudge refreshment scant, Age after age, pants on to find A melting mirage of the mind. But feeling never wanders far, Content to fare with things that are.
 * "A Defence of English Spring", p. 58.

 * Doth Nature draw me, 'tis because, Unto my seeming, there doth lurk A lawlessness about her laws, More mood than purpose in her work.
 * "Nature and the Book", stanza XV; p. 67.

 * If Nature built by rule and square, Than man what wiser would she be? What wins us is her careless care, And sweet unpunctuality.
 * "Nature and the Book", stanza XVII; p. 68.

 * In vain would science scan and trace Firmly her aspect. All the while, There gleams upon her far-off face A vague unfathomable smile.
 * "Nature and the Book", Stanza XX; p. 69.

Prince Lucifer (1887)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1887
 * O thou sophist, Man! Reason by reason proved unreasonable Continues reasoning still! Confronted close, What is this reason? Like the peacock's tail, Just useful for a flourish, nothing more; And when 'tis down, the world goes on the same.
 * Abdiel in Act I, sc. iii; p. 44.

 * Love and naughtiness are always in their teens.
 * Crone in Act III, sc. i; p. 63.

 * Let Will but set its appetite on war, And Reason will promptly invent offence, And furnish blood with arguments.
 * Abdiel in Act III, sc. iii; p. 80.

 * Omit death's certain sharpness, life would lack The salt that lends it savour.
 * Lucifer in Act IV, sc. ii; p. 94.

 * Death is master of lord and clown. Close the coffin and hammer it down.
 * Adam in Act IV, sc. iv; p. 111.

 * Public opinion is no more than this, What people think that other people think.
 * Lucifer in Act VI, sc. ii; p. 189.

 * Who once has doubted never quite believes.
 * Eve in Act VI, sc. ii; p. 193.

 * Who once believed will never wholly doubt.
 * Lucifer in Act VI, sc. ii; p. 193.

Lyrical Poems (1891)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1891
 * Is life worth living? Yes, so long As Spring revives the year, And hails us with the cuckoo's song, To show that she is here;
 * "Is Life Worth Living?", stanza I: p. 158.

 * Is life worth living? Yes, so long As there is wrong to right, Wail of the weak against the strong, Or tyranny to fight;
 * "Is Life Worth Living?", stanza IV; p. 160.

 * So long as Faith with Freedom reigns And loyal Hope survives, And gracious Charity remains To leaven lowly lives; While there is one untrodden tract For Intellect or Will, And men are free to think and act, Life is worth living still.
 * Is Life Worth Living?", stanza IV; pp. 160–161.

 * He is dead already who doth not feel Life is worth living still.
 * "Is Life Worth Living?", stanza V; p. 161.

Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1892
 * Of all our feigned affections, there is none So hollow, selfish, and injurious, As what we christen Patriotism.
 * Fortunatus in Act I, sc. ii; p. 15.

 * 'Tis a world Where all is bought, and nothing's worth the price.
 * Fortunatus in Act I, sc. ii; p. 17.

 * Towns can be trusted to corrupt themselves.
 * Abaddon in Act I, sc. iii; p. 22.

 * The Devil is an echo Of search unsatisfied.
 * Fortunatus in Act I, sc. iii; p. 35.

 * There is no office in this needful world But dignifies the doer if done well.
 * Franklin in Act I, sc. iv; p. 65.

 * Why should you, Because the world is foolish, not be wise?
 * Franklin in Act II, sc. iv; p. 109.

 * Imagination should A reconciler, not a rebel, be, To teach the heart of man to apprehend Nature's vicissitudes, and bear his own, With sympathetic fancy.
 * Urania in Act IV, sc. ii; p. 178.

The Garden That I Love (1894)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1894
 * [T]here is no gardening without humility, an assiduous willingness to learn, and a cheerful readiness to admit that you were mistaken. Nature is continually sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.
 * p. 13.

 * Once learn how Nature gardens for herself, and you will be able to spare yourself a good deal of trouble.
 * p. 22.

 * No one can rightly call his garden his own unless he himself made it.
 * p. 112.

 * A garden that one makes oneself becomes associated with one's personal history and that of one's friends, interwoven with one's tastes, preferences, and character, and constitutes a sort of unwritten, but withal manifest autobiography. Show me your garden, provided it be your own, and I will tell you what you are like.
 * p. 112.

 * [E]xclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society.
 * p. 117.

In Veronica's Garden (1895)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1895
 * [H]e who saves an ancient tree does better even than he who plants a new one.
 * p. 70.

 * Whatever else he may do, a critic reveals and criticises himself.
 * p. 91.

 * If you are not something of a philosopher,—and by philosophy I understand a serene temper, and the maintaining of an equable mind under the sharpest disappointments,—I do not advise you to cultivate, or at any rate to grow enamoured of, a garden.
 * p. 92.

 * A writer cannot take his occupation too seriously. He cannot take himself too lightly.
 * p. 133.

 * [A]mbition should be spoken of as not the last, but the first infirmity of noble minds, of which they gradually purge themselves as they grow more mature.
 * p. 139.

Lamia's Winter-Quarters (1898)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1898
 * One must be intoxicated by scenery, in order to appreciate it. Tranquil survey is not enough, and scrutinising curiosity is fatal.
 * p. 6.

 * Men preach Philosophy, women practise it.
 * Lamia on p. 66.

 * It is always delightful to have one's feelings expressed by some one else in language of enthusiasm one might oneself be afraid to employ.
 * p. 68.

 * [P]eople who canalise their lives and prearrange their enjoyments lose much of the enchantment which attends the guiding beneficence of chance.
 * p. 96.

 * Goodnight! Now dwindle wan and low The embers of the afterglow, And slowly over leaf and lawn Is twilight's dewy curtain drawn.
 * "Goodnight!", p. 163.

Haunts of Ancient Peace (1902)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1902
 * All imitation is exaggeration.
 * Lamia on p. 4.

 * [T]he charm of a half-neglected old garden arises from its having, once upon a time, not been neglected.
 * p. 47.

 * To homes pervaded by charm, as to works of Art that approach perfection, the more happily constituted minds say 'Yes' without any qualification. The proper homage due to them is absolute assent.
 * p. 90.

 * A person of the right sort is one who has a solid grasp and realistic apprehension of people and things as they are, an irresistible inclination to transfigure them according to his imagination, and an inexhaustible supply of philosophic humour.
 * Lamia on p. 118.

 * Hospitality should be accidental, spontaneous, and impulsive, not pre-arranged and calculated.
 * p. 121.

The Poet's Diary (1904)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1904
 * [T]he Caesars of this world act sagaciously, perhaps, in making as much of their purple as possible. The world is largely governed by tailors and upholsterers.
 * p. 155.

 * A little knowledge is said to be a dangerous thing, but it is not dangerous to the imagination. Knowledge is to the imagination what fuel is to flame. A little feeds it; a great deal extinguishes it.
 * p. 158.

 * He was not far wrong who said that, for choice, he would be a beautiful woman from seventeen to thirty, a successful General from thirty to fifty, and a Cardinal for the rest of his days. But of course he was thinking of Cardinals as they were in the days of Leo X, Julius II, and Sextus V, not as they are today, extremely pious and rather pinched for means.
 * P. 166.

 * He was an Englishman of Englishmen, of the old school of charming manners, flavoured by occasional downrightness of speech.
 * P. 171.

 * One can put up with, indeed more than put up with, a certain amount of technical carelessness in Poetry, provided it be in other respects of a very high order, as not unoften, for instance, in Shakespeare and Byron. But similar blemishes in a picture would be all but fatal to it in the estimation of connoisseurs, since it would be the first thing that struck them in it.
 * p. 179.

 * English maidens are, in certain respects, to Italian maidens as moonlight unto sunlight and as water unto wine.
 * p. 187.

 * [W]henever one wants to cite something wise and true, one has to go either to the ancients or to the eighteenth century for it.
 * p. 253.

The Door of Humility (1906)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1906
 * Where in the lily lurks the mind, Where in the rose discern the soul? More mindless still, stream, pasture, lake; The mountains yet more heartless seem. […]  It is their silence that appals, Their aspect motionless that awes, When searching spirit vainly calls On the effect to bare the Cause.
 * "Switzerland", XXII, lines 15–18, 37–40; pp. 53–54.

 * If Man makes Conscience, then being good Is only being worldly wise, And universal brotherhood A comfortable compromise.
 * "Italy", XXXII, line 21; p. 82.

 * Doth logic in the lily hide, And where's the reason in the rose?
 * "Rome", XLI, line 11; p. 116.

The Garden That I Love: Second Series (1907)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1907
 * People living and dead, things past and present, all are contributories to that diminutive stream, oneself; a reflection which is essentially consoling, since it associates one with the sum of things and prevents one from living in barren isolation.
 * p. 4.

 * Repress your antipathies, cultivate your sympathies.
 * p. 4.

 * [C]harm appertains to the essence of the person or thing endowed with it. It cannot be acquired, it cannot be got rid of, and its results are produced without effort, since the person who has it cannot help producing them.
 * pp. 32–33.

 * Women are more frequently charming than men, because they are less self-conscious.
 * p. 35.

 * [I]n all periods of transitional thought and belief the conscience suffers, since its old sanctions have been removed and none other have yet taken their place. It is undermined without being adequately propped up.
 * p. 111.

The Bridling of Pegasus (1910)
The Bridling of Pegasus: Prose Papers on Poetry (London: Macmillan and Co., 1910)
 * [N]o verse which is unmusical or obscure can be regarded as Poetry, whatever other qualities it may possess.
 * "To Sir Alfred C. Lyall" (dedication), p. v.

 * Imagination in Poetry, as distinguished from mere Fancy, is the transfiguring of the Real, or actual, into the Ideal.
 * "To Sir Alfred C. Lyall" (dedication), p. v.

 * The most generous of critics, if he is to be discriminating and just, cannot, let me say again, allow that any verse which is profoundly obscure or utterly unmusical, no matter how intellectual in substance, deserves the appellation of poetry. But on a very thin thread of meaning poetry, or a very fair imitation of it, may be hung by the aid of musical sound.
 * "The Essentials of Great Poetry", p. 7.

Disputed

 * O'er the wires the electric message came, "He is no better; he is much the same."
 * On the Illness of the Prince of Wales (1910)
 * An 1871 poem on the illness of the Prince of Wales, although there is some doubt that Austin actually wrote this part. That classic compendium "The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse" (2d ed. 1930; Capricorn paperback 1962) includes a dozen quotations from Austin but attributes this particular couplet (p. 17) to a "university poet unknown."  It also provides a metrically more accurate first line, "Across the wires the gloomy message came," plus "not" for "no" in the second line.

 * The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.
 * Attributed without citation to Austin in Frank and Vicky Giannangelo's Growing with the Seasons (2008), p. 115, and one or two other gardening books, as well as on various internet gardening sites and lists of quotations. However, it is sometimes attributed to Voltaire, and about one-third of the time it is quoted without attribution, at times without even quotation marks. It is nowhere to be found in Austin's The Garden That I Love or any of its five sequels.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Alfred Austin


text:
Allan Cunningham

Allan Cunningham (7 December 1784 – 30 October 1842) was a Scottish poet.

Quotes

 * A wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast, And fills the white and rustling sail,  And bends the gallant mast. And bends the gallant mast, my boys,  While like the eagle free Away the good ship flies, and leaves  Old England on the lee.
 * "A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea"; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

title: Allan Cunningham


text:
Abraham Cowley

Abraham Cowley (1618 – July 28, 1667) was an English metaphysical poet. In his own time he was widely considered the greatest poet of the age.

 * See also:
 * Davideis (1656)

Quotes

 * Fond archer, Hope! who tak'st thy aim so far, That still or short, or wide thine arrows are!
 * Against Hope.

 * Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discover And not to me, thy no less silent lover?
 * Bathing in the River.

 * To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.
 * Of Agriculture.

 * What shall I do to be forever known, And make the age to come my own?
 * The Motto; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * His time is forever, everywhere his place.
 * Friendship in Absence; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Life is an incurable disease.
 * To Dr. Scarborough; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine, But search of deep philosophy, Wit, eloquence, and poetry; Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine.
 * On the Death of Mr. William Harvey; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.
 * On the Death of Crashaw; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, He can't be wrong whose life is in the right", Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, epilogue iii, line 303.

 * The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, And drinks, and gapes for drink again; The plants suck in the earth, and are With constant drinking fresh and fair.
 * From Anacreon, ii. Drinking; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Fill all the glasses there, for why Should every creature drink but I? Why, man of morals, tell me why?
 * From Anacreon, ii. Drinking; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * A mighty pain to love it is, And 't is a pain that pain to miss; But of all pains, the greatest pain It is to love, but love in vain.
 * From Anacreon, vii. Gold; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Hope, of all ills that men endure, The only cheap and universal cure.
 * The Mistress. For Hope; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Th' adorning thee with so much art Is but a barb'rous skill; 'T is like the pois'ning of a dart, Too apt before to kill.
 * The Waiting Maid; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * The monster London laugh at me.
 * Of Solitude, xi; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, And all the fools that crowd thee so, Even thou, who dost thy millions boast, A village less than Islington wilt grow, A solitude almost.
 * Of Solitude, vii; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them and the study of nature. And there (with no design beyond my wall) whole and entire to lie, In no unactive ease, and no unglorious poverty.
 * The Garden, Preface

 * The fairest garden in her looks, And in her mind the wisest books.
 * The Garden, i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
 * The Garden, ii; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all, Both the great vulgar and the small.
 * Horace, book iii, Ode 1; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name.
 * Virgil, Georgics, book ii, line 72; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Ravish'd with the whistling of a name", Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, epistle iv, line 281.

The Countrey Swain! on whom kind Heav'n bestows At home all Riches that wise Nature needs; Whom the just Earth with easie plenty feeds.
 * Oh happy, (if his happiness he knows)
 * Virgil, Georgics, book ii, line 458; in The Works of Mr Abraham Cowley, The Fifth Edition (London, 1678), p. 105

 * Words that weep and tears that speak.
 * The Prophet; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn", Thomas Gray, Progress of Poesy, iii. 3, 4.

 * We griev'd, we sigh'd, we wept; we never blush'd before.
 * Discourse concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Thus would I double my life's fading space; For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
 * Discourse xi, Of Myself, stanza xi; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "For he lives twice who can at once employ / The present well, and ev'n the past enjoy", Alexander Pope, Imitation of Martial.

 * Awake, awake, my Lyre! And tell thy silent master's humble tale In sounds that may prevail; Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire: Though so exalted she And I so lowly be Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
 * Poem: A Supplication.

 * Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
 * "Beauty," complete poem in The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Samuel Johnson ed., vol. 7, p. 115.

 * To virgin minds, which yet their native whiteness hold, Not yet discoloured with the love of gold (That jaundice of the soul, Which makes it look so gilded and so foul)
 * “Of Greatness”

 * If of their pleasures and desires no end be found; God to their cares and fears will set no bound. What would content you? Who can tell? Ye fear so much to lose what you have got As if ye liked it well. Ye strive for more, as if ye liked it not.
 * “Of Greatness”

Davideis (1656)

 * I sing the Man who Judahs Scepter bore In that right hand which held the Crook before; Who from best Poet, best of Kings did grow; The two chief gifts Heav'n could on Man bestow.
 * Book I, lines 1-4

 * Ev'en Thou my breast with such blest rage inspire, As mov'd the tuneful strings of Davids Lyre
 * Book I, lines 25-26

 * Lo, this great work, a Temple to thy praise, On polisht Pillars of strong Verse I raise! A Temple, where if Thou vouchsafe to dwell, It Solomons, and Herods shall excel. Too long the Muses-Land have Heathen bin; Their Gods too long were Dev'ils, and Vertues Sin; But Thou, Eternal Word, hast call'd forth Me Th' Apostle, to convert that World to Thee;
 * Book I, lines 33-40

 * Well did he know how Palms by oppression speed, Victorious, and the Victors sacred Meed! The Burden lifts them higher. Well did he know, How a tame stream does wild and dangerous grow By unjust force; he now with wanton play, Kisses the smiling Banks, and glides But his known Channel stopt, begins to roare, And swell with rage, and buffet the dull shore. His mutinous waters hurry to the War, And Troops of Waves come rolling from afar. Then scorns he such weak stops to his free source, And overruns the neighboring fields with violent course.
 * Book I, lines 49-60

 * Here Lucifer the mighty Captive reigns; Proud, 'midst his Woes, and Tyrant in his Chains.
 * Book I, lines 91-92

 * Unable to corrupt, seek to destroy; And where their Poysons miss, the Sword employ.
 * Book I, lines 105-106

 * He saw the beauties of his shape and face, His female sweetness, and his manly grace
 * Book I, lines 109-110

 * Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal now does always last.
 * Book I, lines 361-362
 * See also "One of our poets (which is it?) speaks of an everlasting now", Robert Southey, The Doctor, chap. xxv. p. 1

 * Such was Gods Poem, this Worlds new Essay; So wild and rude in its first draught it lay; Th' ungovern'd parts no Correspondence knew, An artless war from thwarting Motions grew; Till they to Number and fixt Rules were brought By the eternal Minds Poetique Thought. Water and Air he for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Base, the Treble Flame arose, To th' active Moon a quick brisk stroke he gave, To Saturns string a touch more soft and grave. The motions Strait, and Round, and Swift, and Slow, And Short, and Long, were mixt and woven so, Did in such artful Figures smoothly fall, As made this decent measur'd Dance of All.
 * Book I, lines 451-464

 * When Israel was from bondage led, Led by the Almighty's hand From out of foreign land, The great sea beheld and fled.
 * Book I, lines 483-486

 * An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair, And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.
 * Book II, lines 801-802
 * Compare: "Loose his beard and hoary hair / Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air", Thomas Gray, The Bard, i. 2

 * Thus each extream to equal danger tends, Plenty as well as Want can separate Friends;
 * Book III, lines 205-206

Quotes about Cowley

 * Read all Cowley; he is very valuable to a collector of English sound sense.
 * William Wordsworth, in Memoirs of William Wordsworth, Vol. II (1851), p. 477

title: Abraham Cowley


text:
John Kerry

John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is a politician, former Massachusetts Senator, Democratic Party's nominee for President in 2004, son of Richard John Kerry and Rosemary Isabel Forbes, husband of Teresa Heinz Kerry. From 2013 to 2017, he served as the 68th United States Secretary of State.

Quotes

 * How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
 * Testimony before subcommittees of the U.S. Senate, April, 1971

 * We feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country. ... And we cannot consider ourselves America's best men when we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia.
 * Testimony before subcommittees of the U.S. Senate, April, 1971

 * There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50-caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant [William] Calley, are war criminals.
 * Testimony before subcommittees of the U.S. Senate, April, 1971

 * We must recognize that there is no indication that Saddam Hussein has any intention of relenting. So we have an obligation of enormous consequence, an obligation to guarantee that Saddam Hussein cannot ignore the United Nations. He cannot be permitted to go unobserved and unimpeded toward his horrific objective of amassing a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
 * Speech to the floor of the Senate, Congressional Record, November 9, 1997

 * If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement, even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act.
 * New York Times op-ed, September 6, 2002

 * We need a new approach to national security - a bold, progressive internationalism that stands in stark contrast to the too often belligerent and myopic unilateralism of the Bush Administration.
 * Remarks at Georgetown University, January 23, 2003

 * If you don't believe...Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me.
 * usatoday.com, February 11, 2003

 * I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.
 * Democratic Presidential Debate May 13, 2003

 * I voted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. I knew we had to hold him accountable. There's never been a doubt about that. But I also know that if we had done this with a sufficient number of troops, if we had done this in a globalized way, if we had brought more people to the table, we might have caught Saddam Hussein sooner. We might have had less loss of life. We would be in a stronger position today with respect to what we're doing.
 * 14 December 2003, Fox News Sunday

 * We're going to keep pounding. These guys [Bush Administration] are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary.
 * Kerry uttered these words, not knowing there was a microphone recording it March 12, 2004

 * I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it. ... Joe [Biden] and I brought an amendment to the $87 billion, and we said, `This should be paid for now, not adding to the deficit'.... The president said no; the Republicans voted no.
 * San Francisco Chronicle, March 21, 2004 pE2

 * America must always be the world's paramount military power, but we can magnify our power through alliances.
 * May 27, 2004

 * I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty.
 * Acceptance Speech at Democratic National Convention, July 29, 2004

 * It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 * Sept 6, 2004

 * There is some schedule showing what you (need) to do to get Iraqis standing up and defending themselves which is now suddenly beginning to happen, so there are some signs of progress.
 * September 27, 2005

 * We're here to talk about education. But I want to say something before that....You know, education, if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.
 * Speech to California students, 31 October 2006
 * Quoted in

 * I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did. I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium.
 * Unidentified 31 October 2006 statement
 * Quoted in

 * KERRY: I have had conversations with leaders.
 * UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Recently?
 * KERRY: Yes, recently.
 * UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How recent?
 * KERRY: That‘s not your business. It‘s mine. Are you a Democrat, a Republican? What are you? Are you a registered Republican?
 * (CROSSTALK)
 * KERRY: Are you a Republican? You answer the question. Did you vote for George Bush? Did you vote for George Bush?
 * UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I voted for George Bush and I...
 * KERRY: Thank you.
 * (UNIDENTIFIED MALE sits while booed by crowd)

 * March 2004 exchange
 * Quoted in

 * We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or truth or what's happening.
 * September 27, 2010.

 * So my judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it.
 * Speech at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 16, 2011.

 * After Mitt Romney said it would be naive to go into Pakistan to pursue the terrorists, it took President Obama, against the advice of many, to give that order and finally rid this earth of Osama bin Laden. Ask Osama bin Laden if he is better off now than he was four years ago!
 * September 6, 2012 John Kerry’s speech to the Democratic National Convention, 2012

 * What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality. Make no mistake, President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people.
 * Syria chemical attack undeniable, says John Kerry, August 26, 2013

And that's why when some people — I even had a member of my own family email me and say, “More bombs aren’t the solution,” they said. Well, in principle, no. In principle, if you can educate and change people and provide jobs and make a difference if that's what they want, sure. But in this case, that's not what's happening. This is just raw terror to set up a caliphate to expand and expand and spread one notion of how you live and who you have to be. That is the antithesis of everything that brought our countries together — why Lafayette came to America to help us find liberty, and all of the evolutions of the struggles of France, the governments, to find the liberte, egalite, fraternite, and make it real in life every day. And all of that peacefulness was shattered in the span of an hour-plus on Friday night when people were going about their normal business. And they purposefully chose a concert, chose restaurants, chose places where people engage in social dialogue and exchange, and they object to that too. So this is not a situation where we have a choice. '''We have been at war with these guys since last year. President Obama said that very clearly. And every single country — not just in the region, but around the world — is opposed to what they are doing to the norms of human behavior and the standards by which we try to live.'''
 * There's something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they're really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn't to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That's not an exaggeration. It was to assault all sense of nationhood and nation-state and rule of law and decency, dignity, and just put fear into the community and say, “Here we are.” And for what? What's the platform? What's the grievance? That we're not who they are? They kill people because of who they are and they kill people because of what they believe. And it's indiscriminate. They kill Shia. They kill Yezidis. They kill Christians. They kill Druze. They kill Ismaili. They kill anybody who isn't them and doesn't pledge to be that. And they carry with them the greatest public display of misogyny that I've ever seen, not to mention a false claim regarding Islam. It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism — I mean, you name it.
 * "Remarks to the Staff and Families of U.S. Embassy, Paris" (17 November 2015) on the November 2015 Paris attacks; also quoted in "John Kerry: Charlie Hebdo Attack Had ‘Legitimacy,’ ‘Rationale’ Behind It" by Alex Griswold, mediaite.com (17 November 2015)

 * “Now, I know there are still a few who insist that climate change is one big hoax, even a political conspiracy. My friends, these people are so out of touch with science that they believe rising sea levels don’t matter, because, in their view, the extra water is just going to spill out over the sides of a flat Earth.” –
 * December 9, 2015, Paris. Source: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/12/9/it_is_not_enough_despite_promise

 * Years ago when I left college, I went to war. And I learned in war the price that is paid when diplomacy fails. And I made a decision that if I ever was lucky enough to be in a position to make a difference, I would try to do so.
 * On finalizing the Iran Deal

 * Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn't cover it quite as much. People wouldn't know what's going on.
 * On terrorism — Press Availability in Dhaka, Bangladesh (29 August 2016)

 * Regrettably, some seem to believe that the US friendship means the US must accept any policy regardless all our interests, our own words, our own position, our own principles, even after urging again and again that the policy must change... Friends need to tell each other the hard truth and friendships require mutual respect.
 * On UNSC resolution 2334, Kerry Blasts Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu — (December 2016)

Misattributed

 * "Who among us doesn't like NASCAR?" What Kerry actually said at a campaign rally in Milwaukee was: "There isn't one of us here who doesn't like NASCAR and who isn't a fan."
 *
 *

Quotes about Kerry

 * John Kerry had intense supporters of his own. Hollywood filmmaker Michael Moore came out with a so-called documentary that was nothing more than campaign propaganda. In return, Kerry said that Hollywood entertainers conveyed "the heart and soul of our country."
 * George W. Bush, Decision Points (2010), p. 290

 * I think we need people with stronger ideals than John Kerry or Bill Clinton. I think we need people with more courage and vision. It's a shame we have had people who are so damn weak.
 * 2006 interview in Conversations with Octavia Butler

 * In September 2013, a month after Obama backed down from launching strikes against Assad to punish him for using chemical weapons, he and President Rouhani spoke on the phone while they were both at the UN General Assembly. The Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, sat down for a tête-à-tête. It was the highest level of contact between the two countries since 1979. The Saudis were shocked and felt deeply betrayed. They had long since moved on from the era of détente in the 1990s and had a particular aversion to back channels between Iran and the United States. They’d felt betrayed before by such talks, and it made them feel deeply insecure about their place in the Middle East and their role as America’s top ally in the Arab world. The Saudi-US alliance, based on oil for security, had its limitations, and the relationship had been sorely tested by events like the September 11 attacks. Meanwhile, there were policymakers in Washington who felt Iran held more promise of turning into a democracy than a desert kingdom with an absolute monarchy. The Saudis were apoplectic when they heard such musings. The Obama administration also believed that if a deal could be reached while the reformers were in power, an improved economy would further strengthen the reformers and show how much the hardliners had failed the people.
 * Kim Ghattas, Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East (2020)

 * John Kerry has likened the threat of climate change to a "weapon of mass destruction," and it's a fair analogy. But if climate change poses risks on par with nuclear war, then why are we not responding with the seriousness that that comparison implies? Why aren't we ordering companies to stop putting our future at risk, instead of bribing and cajoling them? Why are we gambling?
 * Naomi Klein This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (2014)

 * unless we pay our climate debt, and quickly, we may well find ourselves living in a world of climate rage. "Privately, we already hear the simmering resentment of diplomats whose countries bear the costs of our emissions," Senator John Kerry observed recently. "I can tell you from my own experience: It is real, and it is prevalent. It's not hard to see how this could crystallize into a virulent, dangerous, public anti-Americanism. That's a threat too. Remember: The very places least responsible for climate change and least equipped to deal with its impacts will be among the very worst affected." That, in a nutshell, is the argument for climate debt.
 * Naomi Klein in The Global Warming Reader edited by Bill McKibben (2012)

 * John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded. So instead of offering tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas, he'll offer them to companies creating jobs here at home. John Kerry believes in an America where all Americans can afford the same health coverage our politicians in Washington have for themselves. John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren't held hostage to the profits of oil companies or the sabotage of foreign oil fields. John Kerry believes in the constitutional freedoms that have made our country the envy of the world, and he will never sacrifice our basic liberties nor use faith as a wedge to divide us. And John Kerry believes that in a dangerous world, war must be an option, but it should never be the first option.
 * Barack Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address, (27 July 2004)

 * This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them, and we assume they are decent people, but he is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad.
 * Vladimir Putin, as quoted in USA Today, (5 September 2013).

title: John Kerry


text:
Talk:Fight Club (film)

In the book, several "Tyler" movie quotes are said by "Jack" and vice versa. Is there any plan to disambiguate this?

 * The same problem exists with Marla and the misc quotes. Many of the lines were switched around from character to character in the movie (most of which were said by the narrator in the book). I also think it's a bit of an issue that we have many quotes here that are from the movie only and not the book. When I started this article, I was careful to include only the quotes that existed in both. As it stands now, there are many that are movie specific, and probably should have their own section. -- LGagnon

Good plan...
 * I agree, the way this is set up now is sloppy. The movie probably needs its own page. 72.24.207.157 14:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Clean up needed
As mentioned above, the article is currently messed up. Attribution is poor (many lines in the novel are used by other characters in the film and vice versa) and film and novel lines are mixed together. The article has become almost useless for anyone trying to get quotes specifically from the film or the novel. We need to separate the quotes into sections for film and novel so that there can be some sensibility about it. -- LGagnon 01:55, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I would actually recommend that we separate this into two pages, one for the film and one for the novel. ~ UDScott 17:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

 * I support that too. It makes it clear what's from the book and what's from the movie, without resorting to kludges like an indented list item "movie version: xxx". —LrdChaos (talk) 17:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

 * Someone badly needs to clean this up. Can we seperate the movie quotes from the book? Or would that be too minor to merit a section?

Inaccuracy
The clean up template was removed despite the problem not being fixed. I am putting the accuracy dispute template in the article until this serious problem with atribution is solved. -- LGagnon 00:57, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The quote of the rules of fight club is missing rule 5

The quote about having "No Great War" was said by the mechanic in the book.--Tragic week 02:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Isn't the "Mona Lisa is falling apart" when the narrator pulls out his teeth from the movie? In the book the mechanic says he wants to wipe his ass on the Mona Lisa.

Cleaned up
Committed myself to a cleaning of the article, mostly the presentation and grammar. If someone wants to filter through the quotes and determine which are from the film and which from the novel, that'd be great.

It needs the scene when tyler puts the lye onto Jack's hand. It is the most important scene in the movie, summarising what tyler is trying to achieve spiritually.58.174.177.100 03:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Copyright
As per Limits on quotations, I edited the page down to twelve bits of dialogue. ~ Kingdok 07:03, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Classic?
But as per Limits on quotations, it does also state that "If a page is considered by an editor to have an unusually large number of memorable quotes (e.g., some movie classics), an appeal can be made to the community to allow an exception to the guidelines." I argue that this is such a movie and is missing some important quotes such as "The people you're looking for are the people you depend on. We cook your meals. We haul your trash. We collect your calls. We drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep...Do NOT, fuck with us." ~ 97.103.92.145 07:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

PIcture change
If the article is film specific now, the picture should get changed. It looks like it's the book cover (German?) Dancindazed (talk) 03:05, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

title: Talk:Fight Club (film)