Rudyard Kipling: Quotes about men

“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.”

“War is an ill thing, as I surely know. But 'twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain.”

“There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and woman to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers & Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.”

“It is not a good fancy,' said the llama. 'What profit to kill men?'
Very little - as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers.”

“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!”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

“God gave all men all earth to love,
But since our hearts are small,
Ordained for each one spot should prove
Belovèd over all.”

“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.”

“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.”

““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.”

“More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.”

“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.”

“Whatever comes or does not come, we men must not be afraid.”