The Jungle Book quotes

He whistled with surprise when he saw Mowgli being dragged up to a treetop and heard him give the Kite call for--“We be of one blood, thou and I.” The waves of the branches closed over the boy, but Rann balanced away to the next tree in time to see the little brown face come up again.

One of the beauties of Jungle Law is that punishment settles all scores. There is no nagging afterward.

It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the mongoose family is “Run and find out,” and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose.

“Now, don’t be angry after you’ve been afraid. That’s the worst kind of cowardice,” said the troop-horse.

— Spoken by a character · Her Majesty’s Servants

“There is none like to me!” says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill; But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.

— the Cub · Kaa’s Hunting

The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason, forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe.

The air was full of all the night noises that, taken together, make one big silence--the click of one bamboo stem against the other, the rustle of something alive in the undergrowth, the scratch and squawk of a half-waked bird (birds are awake in the night much more often than we imagine), and the fall of water ever so far away.

The reason the beasts give among themselves is that Man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him.

What is the Law of the Jungle? Strike first and then give tongue.

— Bagheera · Mowgli’s Brothers

His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the Buffalo’s pride. Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide.

Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother, For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother.

Oh, fat, brown, root-digging fool that I am,” said Baloo, uncoiling himself with a jerk, “it is true what Hathi the Wild Elephant says: `To each his own fear’; and they, the Bandar-log, fear Kaa the Rock Snake.

— Baloo · Kaa’s Hunting

“Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me who love him than that he should come to harm through ignorance,” Baloo answered very earnestly.

— Baloo · Kaa’s Hunting

It is better to lie quiet in the mud than to be disturbed on good bedding.

— Spoken by a character · Her Majesty’s Servants

And he grew and grew strong as a boy must grow who does not know that he is learning any lessons, and who has nothing in the world to think of except things to eat.

Now Rann the Kite brings home the night That Mang the Bat sets free-- The herds are shut in byre and hut For loosed till dawn are we.