173 quotes
“What are the bugles blowin' for?” said Files-on-Parade.
“To turn you out, to turn you out”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892)
The masterless man … afflicted with the magic of the necessary words…. Words that may become alive and walk up and down in the hearts of the hearers.
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)
Over all things certain, this is sure indeed,
Suffer not the old King, for we know the breed.
'E's all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive
An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892)
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.
Two things greater than all things are,
The first is Love, and the second War.
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.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892)
Sing, for faith and hope are high—
None so true as you and I—
Sing the Lovers' Litany:
"Love like ours can never die!"
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.
Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)
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?
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 Second Jungle Book (1895)
The heart of a man to the heart of a maid—
Light of my tents, be fleet—
Morning awaits at the end of the world,
And the world is all at our feet.
The Gypsy Trail (1892)
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 Second Jungle Book (1895)
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)
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 '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.
The Seven Seas (1896)
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?
Epitaphs of the War (1914-1918) (1918)
'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.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892)
All we have of freedom—all we use or know—
This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.