Rudyard Kipling

What do sad complaints avail if the offense is not cut down by punishment.

For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to think otherwise than in the fashion of their own period.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

Of what significance are the things you can forget.

Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had done great things, and never the idiots whose mothers had spoiled them and whose fathers had left them a hundred thousand a year; and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters, and not poor persons who had never had a chance. That is why idiots are always in favor of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favor of equality.

An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.

More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage stop to pray before cutting his throat.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

He liked to like people, therefore people liked him.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.