“It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity.”

— Rudyard Kipling, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, The Jungle Book (1894)

About Rudyard Kipling

1865 – 1936

English writer and poet, Nobel laureate in Literature (1907), known for 'The Jungle Book' and the poem 'If—'.

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.”

“Enough work to do, and strength enough to do the work.”

“More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.”

“That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.”

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”