On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer; China 'crost the Bay!

Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?

There rise her timeless capitals of empires daily born, whose plinths are laid at midnight and whose streets are packed at morn; and here come tired youths and maids that feign to love or sin in tones like rusty razor blades to tunes like smitten tin.

There are nine-and-sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right.

This is Burma, and it will be quite unlike any land you know about.

If you give someone more than they can do, they will do it. If you give them only what they can do, they will do nothing.

If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting ... if you can dream, and not make dreams your master; if you can think, and not make thoughts your aim; if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same; ... yours is the earth and everything that's in it...