Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He wrote tales and poems of British soldiers in India and stories for children. Wi kipedia Born: December 30, 1865, Mumbai Died: January 18, 1936, London, United Kingdom Poems: If , The White Man's Burden, Gunga Din, Mandalay, more Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature Quotes Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty. We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.