Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Mumbai, (Bombay) India in 1865 and died in London in 1936 aged 70.
He was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist and wrote about British soldiers in India and stories for children. Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In 1907, Rudyard Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date.
Kipling’s works of fiction include “The Jungle Book”, “Kim”, and many short stories, including “The Man Who Would Be King”. His poems include “Mandalay”, “Gunga Din”,”The White Man’s Burden”, and “If—.”
Kipling’s subsequent reputation has changed according to the political and social climate of the age. For example, George Orwell called him a “prophet of British imperialism” while literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: “He [Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled.”
With the passage of time, Kipling has become recognized as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced.
The LifeDaily team has selected a few examples of the wit and wisdom of Rudyard Kipling.
Browse our selection to understand him better:
- God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.]
- I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble.
- Never look backwards or you’ll fall down the stairs.
- Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
- A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.
- All the people like us are we, and everyone else is They.
- San Francisco is a mad city – inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty.
- He travels the fastest who travels alone.
- I have struck a city – a real city – and they call it Chicago… I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.
- An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
- For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
- Asia is not going to be civilized after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.
- The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.
- If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.
- A woman’s guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty.
These are just a few examples of how Rudyard Kipling wrote.
Did you ever read his children’s stories when you were younger? What do you think of his work in general?
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