I like this new-to-me quotation from Rudyard Kipling, and I’ve added it to my Quotations page: 
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” (Rudyard Kipling in 1935)
Also this one: “Do the things you really want to do if you possibly can. Don’t wait for circumstances to be exactly right. You’ll find that they never are.”
Source: Arthur Gordon, “Six Hours with Rudyard Kipling,” The Kipling Journal (June 1967), p. 7. (Via Stuart Hayashi.)
Thank you very much for sharing this. 🙂
I actually have Kipling’s “If” on my night stand. I read as much as I can. This quote is excellent and has put me in a much better mood.
Rudyard Kipling, in my view, was a late Victorian poet whose huge output trampled on the toes of many moderns, writers who eschewed rhyme and rhythm. Kipling claimed inspiration from Pindar, the ancient Greek whose odes are the ne plus ultra of choral/eulogy writing. Kipling’s lyre is tightly strung. The notes come off in the right key and the right tempo. Alas, this consistency has led him to having been criticized, like Edgar Alan Poe, as a “jingle writer.” In Kipling’s case, a “jingoist” writer.
Kipling was no racist, as poems like “Gunga Din”, “Fuzzy-Wuzzy”, and other ballads about Indian culture. He does not disrespect, nor conform to, tribal standards. Kipling perceived that some peoples are imperialistic, like the English, and dominate others (hopefully, to their benefit).
One predominant Victorian theme was that a hard working individual would succeed. Self-reliance (in the manner of Emerson) was the backbone of this ethic. But all achievements had the background of culture, race, and tribe, even religion. His poem “Processional” abjures the English not to be proud. “Envoi” is a complicated and sophisticated paean to the life well lived. He appreciates the enormous influence of women in politics, whether they can vote or not. His “Mandalay” is one of the most evocative poems ever written, comparing the luxuriant lifestyle of the East to English pretense and money-grubbing. It was George Orwell’s favorite poem. It has a tenderness commensurate with its nostalgia. “Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst…”
Kipling sheds light on the British imperial view. Whatever we think of it NOW, the British Empire was the great achievement of the nineteenth century. It exploited native populations, but less than their previous masters. There was the law, right and wrong, and no tribal whimsey. But we must keep his balance in mind : without the strong man, the leader, there can be no order. Without the mass subjecting itself to law, life is chaos and a struggle.
Kipling repays much re-reading!
Interesting to note that this quote is frequently attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” It is in fact a bit like Section 199 of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil.
There is even a German language version, offered as the original:
“Der Mensch hat immer zu kämpfen hatte, um nicht von dem Stamm überwältigt zu halten. Wenn Sie es versuchen, werden Sie oft einsam und manchmal Angst. Aber kein Preis ist zu hoch für das Privileg besitzen selbst bezahlen.”
I haven’t been able to find an exact source. Your citation is far better than anything I’ve seen from those attributing the quote to Nietzsche.
What do you make of that?
To Blyden:
As a native German I can assure you, that this is not an original quote from Nietzsche, neither is it grammatically correct. The German sentence you posted looks more like a product of google machine translation, or a very bad human translator.
Greetings from Heidelberg 🙂
The correct quote in German is:
“Das Individuum musste immer darum kämpfen, nicht von der Horde überwältigt zu werden. Wer es versucht, wird sehr oft einsam sein und manchmal voller Furcht. Doch kein Preis ist zu hoch für das Privileg sich selbst zu gehören.”
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So Nietzsche or Kipling ?
cause I’ve always thought it was from Nietzsche, from the book Beyond good and evil, 1886 (date from wikipedia) which I read (translated in french though)
nevertheless this quote is utterly conform to his philosophy. Don’t you think ?
I don’t think that quoting Nietzsche take any greatness away from Kipling if it is the case.
I’d like to know if this quote, quite significant for me, was (for years) wrongly attributed to Nietzsche, it doesn’t bother me to switch to Kipling :))