Quotes to inspire and reflect

I keep six honest serving men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.

For frantic boast and foolish word— Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

Take up the White Man’s burden, 4 Send forth the best ye breed— Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need.

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Lesser breeds without the Law.

The tumult and the shouting dies; The captains and the kings depart.

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!

Daughter am I in my mother’s house; But mistress in my own.

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!)

I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it.

For the Colonel’s Lady an’ Judy O’Grady Are sisters under their skins!

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 and down!

They change their skies above them, But not their hearts that roam.

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!

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.

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.

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind.

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.

Back to the Army again, sergeant, Back to the Army again. Out o’ the cold an’ the rain.

There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right.

There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, Or the way of a man with a maid; But the sweetest way to me is a ship’s upon the sea In the heel of the Northeast Trade.

There’s a legion that never was ’listed, That carries no colors or crest.

The sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one.

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

We have done with Hope and Honor, 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!

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! Baa!

To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned.

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.

The Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It’s pretty, but is it Art?”

On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin’ fishes play, An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!

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!”

’Ave you ’eard o’ the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on ’er ’ead?

Though I’ve belted you an’ flayed you, By the livin’ Gawd that made you, You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

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.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck ’im out, the brute!” But it’s “Savior of ’is country” when the guns begin to shoot.

We aren’t no thin red ’eroes.

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

“What are the bugles blowin’ for?” said Files-on-Parade. “To turn you out, to turn you out,” the Color-Sergeant said.

They rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid.

When Earth’s last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an eon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.

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.”

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!

If I were damned of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine.

And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone. 1

The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road Preaches contentment to that toad.

Little Tin Gods on Wheels.

At my dying hour, and over my long life, A clock strikes somewhere at the city’s edge.