A DEAD STATESMAN
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?
from EPITAPHS OF THE WAR 1914-18
Tag: politics truth lies war youth corruption irony dishonesty deceit
Whatever he knows of his weaknesses, Private Mulvaney is wholly ignorant of his strength.
Rudyard KiplingTag: endurance strength-of-character
They talk o' rich folks bein' stuck up and genteel, but for iron-clad pride o' respectability there's nowt like poor chapel folk. Why, 'tis as cold as the wind on Greenhow Hill -- aye, and colder, too, for 'twill never change.
Rudyard KiplingTag: pride-and-prejudice
So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle from that day on. But he was not always alone, because years afterward he became a man and married.
But that is a story for grown-ups.
Then the 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.
Rudyard KiplingWe 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!
from "Gentleman Rankers
Tag: truth love lost youth despair hope honor torment
This leads me to the Higher Editing. Take of well-ground Indian Ink as much as suffices and a camel-hair brush proportionate to the inter-spaces of your lines. In an auspicious hour, read your final draft and consider faithfully every paragraph, sentence and word, blacking out where requisite. Let it lie by to drain as long as possible. At the end of that time, re-read and you should find that it will bear a second shortening. Finally, read it aloud alone and at leisure. Maybe a shade more brushwork will then indicate or impose itself. If not, praise Allah and let it go, and ‘when thou hast done, repent not.’ The shorter the tale, the longer the brushwork and, normally, the shorter the lie-by, and vice versa. The longer the tale, the less brush but the longer lie-by. I have had tales by me for three or five years which shortened themselves almost yearly. The magic lies in the Brush and the Ink. For the Pen, when it is writing, can only scratch; and bottled ink is not to compare with the ground Chinese stick. Experto crede.
Rudyard KiplingHis nickname through all the wards was ' Little Friend of all the World'; and very often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion. It was intrigue, of course.
Rudyard KiplingIf you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. . . . The world will be yours and everything in it, what's more, you'll be a man, my son."
Rudyard Kipling
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!
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