"There rise her timeless capitals of Empires daily born, Whose plinths are laid at midnight, and whose streets are packed at morn; And here come hired youths and maids that feign to love or sin In tones like rusty razor-blades to tunes like smitten tin."

"Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes, It will vanish and the stars will shine again, Because, for all our power and weight and size, We are nothing more than children of your brain!"

"But remember, please, the Law by which we live, We are not built to comprehend a lie, We can neither love nor pity nor forgive, If you make a slip in handling us you die! We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings— Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods!— Our touch can alter all created things, We are everything on earth—except The Gods!"

"Now I possess and am possessed of the land where I would be, And the curve of half Earth's generous breast shall soothe and ravish me!"

"We and They, Stanza 1."

"Father, Mother, and Me, Sister and Auntie say All the people like us are We, And every one else is They."

"Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees, So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!"

"There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, Or the way of a man with a maid; But the fairest way to me is a ship's upon the sea In the heel of the North-East Trade."

"Two things greater than all things are, The first is Love, and the second War."

"Four things greater than all things are,— Women and Horses and Power and War."

"When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey."

"A people always ends by resembling its shadow."

"Never again will I spend another winter in this accursed Bucket shop|bucketshop of a refrigerator called England."

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."

"As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all."

"No easy hope or lies Shall bring us to our goal, But iron sacrifice Of body, will, and soul. There is but one task for all— One life for each to give. What stands if Freedom fall? Who dies if England live?"

"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 the female of the species is more deadly than the male."

"For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, They arrive at their conclusions—largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none: But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done."

"Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear."

"Enough work to do, and strength enough to do the work."

"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."

"In the flush of the hot June prime, O'ersleek flood-tides afire, I hear him hurry the chime To the bidding of checked Desire; Till the sweated ringers tire And the wild bob-majors die. Could I wait for my turn in the godly choir? (Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!"

"Being kissed by a man who didn't wax his moustache was like eating an egg without salt."

"But that's another story."

"I could not dig: I dared not rob: Therefore I lied to please the mob. Now all my lies are proved untrue And I must face the men I slew. What tale shall serve me here among Mine angry and defrauded young?"

"From little towns in a far land we came, To save our honour and a world aflame. By little towns in a far land we sleep, And trust the world we won for you to keep."

"This man in his own country prayed we know not to what powers. We pray them to reward him for his bravery in ours."

"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?"

"If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied."

"Take of English earth as much As either hand may rightly clutch. In the taking of it breathe Prayer for all who lie beneath."

"Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn."

"Five and twenty ponies Trotting through the dark— Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk. Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie— Watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by!"

"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."

"Yet instant to fore-shadowed need ⁠The eternal balance swings; ⁠That winged men the Fates may breed ⁠So soon as Fate hath wings. ⁠⁠These shall possess ⁠⁠Our littleness, ⁠And in the imperial task (as worthy) lay ⁠Up our lives' all to piece one giant day."

"Before the years reborn behold ⁠Themselves with stranger eye, ⁠And the sport-making Gods of old, ⁠Like Samson slaying, die, ⁠⁠Many shall hear ⁠⁠The all-pregnant sphere, ⁠Bow to the birth and sweat, but — speech denied — ⁠Sit dumb or — dealt in part — fall weak and wide."

"Ye know who use the Crystal Ball ⁠(To peer by stealth on Doom), ⁠The Shade that, shaping first of all, ⁠⁠Prepares an empty room. ⁠⁠⁠Then doth It pass ⁠⁠⁠Like breath from glass, ⁠But, on the extorted vision bowed intent, ⁠No man considers why It came or went."

"I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me."

"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."

"When the cabin port-holes are dark and green Because of the seas outside; When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between) And the steward falls into the soup-tureen, And the trunks begin to slide; When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap, And Mummy tells you to let her sleep, And you aren't waked or washed or dressed, Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed) You're ‘Fifty North and Forty West!'"

"When you've shouted "Rule Brittania": when you've sung "God Save the Queen," When you've finished killing Kruger with your mouth, Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine For a gentleman in khaki headed South?"

"Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror, And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain. The White Man's Burden, Stanza 2 (1899)."

"Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile, To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. The White Man's Burden, Stanza 1 (1899)."

"And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!"

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

"I've taken my fun where I've found it; I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time; I've 'ad my pickin' o' sweet'earts, An' four o' the lot was prime. One was an 'arf-caste widow, One was a woman at Prome, One was the wife of a jemadar-sais, An' one is a girl at 'ome."

"'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse—soldier an' sailor too."

"Back to the Army again, sergeant, Back to the Army again: Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant, Out o' the cold an' the rain."

"It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world, Which you can read and care for just so long, But presently you feel that you will die Unless you get the page you're readin' done, An' turn another—likely not so good; But what you're after is to turn 'em all."