... it's always best to tell the truth.
— Rudyard KiplingThe Gardener (1925)
Use itGS4 case study close: honesty is the best course even when costly.
Quotes / Thinkers / Rudyard Kipling
Thinker · 18 quotes
Rudyard Kipling quotes for UPSC
18 sourced quotes by Rudyard Kipling on integrity & honesty, nation, unity & diversity, character & virtue, health & wellbeing, compassion & empathy, with a use case for each in GS4, Essay and interviews.
✓ Attributions checked against Wikiquote's sourced list
... scandals are only increased by hushing them up.
— Rudyard KiplingThe Gardener (1925)
Use itGS4: transparency in institutions; cover-ups worsen scandals, disclose early.
But he couldn't lie if you paid him and he'd starve before he stole.
— Rudyard KiplingThe Mary Gloster
Use itGS4: describe uncompromising integrity of an ideal civil servant.
‘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.
— Rudyard KiplingKaa's hunting
Use itLife: humility after early success; early wins should not breed arrogance.
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.
— Rudyard KiplingAs quoted from “Interview with an Immoral,” Arthur Gordon, Reader’s Digest (July 1959). Reprinted in the Kipling Society journal, “Six Hours
Use itEssay on individuality vs conformity; the cost and worth of thinking independently.
The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road Preaches contentment to that toad.
— Rudyard KiplingPagett M.P, prelude
Use itGS4: privileged preaching to the suffering; need for empathy over advice.
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.
— Rudyard KiplingThe Lesson, Stanza 8 (1899-1902)
Use itGS4: own failures; reasons for failure exist, excuses don't.
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.
— Rudyard KiplingThe Elephant's Child
Use itEssay on education: curiosity via what, where, when, how, why, who.
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.
— Rudyard KiplingThe Law of the Jungle, Stanza 6
Use itGS2: de-escalation through leader-level dialogue in border standoffs.
We be of one blood, ye and I.
— Rudyard KiplingKaa's Hunting
Use itEssay on universal brotherhood; shared humanity across differences.
Father, Mother, and Me, Sister and Auntie say All the people like us are We, And every one else is They.
— Rudyard KiplingOther works
Use itEssay on identity politics: in-group 'we' versus out-group 'they'.
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!
— Rudyard KiplingThe Ballad of East and West (1889)
Use itEssay on globalisation: shared humanity transcends borders, race and birth.
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
— Rudyard KiplingSpeech, quoted in The Times (February 15, 1923)
Use itEssay on power of words: rhetoric, propaganda and hate speech.
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.
— Rudyard KiplingCities and Thrones and Powers, Stanza 1 (1906)
Use itEssay/GS1: impermanence of empires and renewal of civilisations.
Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.
— Rudyard Kipling"Fiction", speech to the Royal Society of Literature, June 1926; published in Writings on Writing: Rudyard Kipling (1996), ed. Sandra Kemp a
Use itEssay on literature's role: stories reveal truths facts cannot.
Enough work to do, and strength enough to do the work.
— Rudyard KiplingA Doctor's Work, an address at Middlesex Hospital (October 1908)
Use itLife: a modest wish for meaningful work and strength to do it.
More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.
— Rudyard KiplingThe Phantom 'Rickshaw (1888)
Use itEssay on work culture and burnout; argue against glorifying overwork.
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.
— Rudyard KiplingSestina of the Tramp-Royal, Stanza 4 (1896)
Use itEssay on work-life balance; work is essential but life is short.