Kim (Illustrated edition)

Their pay was cut for ignorance. There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this.’

We can only walk one step at a time in this world, praise God!

Lurgan Sahib had a hawk’s eye to detect the least flaw in the make-up; and lying on a worn teak-wood couch, would explain by the half-hour together how such and such a caste talked, or walked, or coughed, or spat, or sneezed, and, since ‘hows’ matter little in this world, the ‘why’ of everything.

No man could be a fool who knew the language so intimately, who moved so gently and silently, and whose eyes were so different from the dull fat eyes of other Sahibs.

‘Learn first—teach later,’ said Lurgan Sahib. ‘Is he thy master?’ ‘Truly. But how is it done?’ ‘By doing it many times over till it is done perfectly—for it is worth doing.’

‘There is no pride,’ said the lama, after a pause, ‘there is no pride among such as follow the Middle Way.’

‘Men are like horses. At certain times they need salt, and if that salt is not in the mangers they will lick it up from the earth.

‘As regards that young horse,’ said Mahbub, ‘I say that when a colt is born to be a polo-pony, closely following the ball without teaching—when such a colt knows the game by divination—then I say it is a great wrong to break that colt to a heavy cart, Sahib!’

‘What is to do now?’ ‘Wait. Let us wait.’