The Sayings of Rudyard Kipling

Artist and propagandist, poet, novelist and short story writer of genius, Kipling is the most quoted author of the last hundred years. Many of his sayings have acquired proverbial status. George Orwell acknowledged in 1942 that Kipling was ‘the only English writer of our time who has added phrases to the language’, citing such instances as ‘East is East and West is West’/‘The white man’s burden’/‘What do they know of England who only England know?’/‘The female of the species is more deadly than the male’/‘Somewhere East of Suez’/ and ‘Paying the Danegeld’. Yet other less familiar, unexpected aspects of his mind and art are also reflected in these sayings, which challenge many received ideas about life, literature and politics.