Rudyard Kipling

"I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble"

"If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"

"If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten."

"We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse."

"An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy."

"It's clever, but is it Art?"

"And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves 'It's pretty, but is it Art?"

"San Francisco is a mad city - inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty."

"Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful,' and sitting in the shade."

"He travels the fastest who travels alone."

"The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it."

"I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble."

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier."

"All the people like us are we, and everyone else is They."

"Heaven grant us patience with a man in love."

"Borrow trouble for yourself, if that's your nature, but don't lend it to your neighbours."

"I keep six honest serving men. (They taught me all I know) Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who."

"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!"

"Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind."

"A fool there was and he made his prayer (Even as you and I!) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair (We called her the woman who did not care) But the fool he called her his lady fair - (Even as you or I!)"