Rudyard Kipling Quotes

They are so knowing, that they know nothing.

Ostentation is the signal flag of hypocrisy.

Everything has two sides - the outside that is ridiculous, and the inside that is solemn.

Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony.

Who names themselves 'The Situation?' I do not take myself seriously like that - not in the least bit - that would be so pretentious.

I don't like pretentious films or pretentious people.

Style equals pretense.

A lot of people in film run around with a facade and use the right vocabulary and think they're mental giants, but it's very limiting.

All my plays have these titles that are oddly tricky. I like that something can look like one thing but mean two different things. Language is really unstable in that way.

Great affectation and great absence of it are at first sight very similar.

Intelligence is silence, truth is being invisible. But what a racket I make in declaring this.

There's no one as transparent as the person who thinks he's devilish deep.

I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not.

My success has depended wholly on putting things over on people, so I'm not sure that I'm that great a role model. I am, however, an expert on pretending to be an expert on pretending to be an expert.

People are like birds: on the wing, all beautiful; up close, all beady little eyes.

Observermanship is the art of giving the impression that you are with it even though you don't know Latin very well.

All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich

There is a pleasure in affecting affectation.

They call it the Latin Quarter because nobody there is Latin and nobody has a quarter.

Modesty is a bright dish-cover, which makes us fancy there is something very nice underneath it.

Some people are so poor, all they have is their money.

In every sorrowing soul I pour'd delight, And poverty stood smiling in my sight.

The real beggar is indeed the true and only king.

When did the lemons learn the same creed as the sun?

There is nothing more visible than what is secret, and nothing more manifest than what is minute.