Fragrance Quote
Rudyard Kipling wrote that “smells are surer than sounds or sights / To make your heart-strings crack,” in his 1903 poem “Lichtenberg.”
In His Own Words
“Smells are surer than sounds or sights
To make your heart-strings crack—
They start those awful voices o’ nights
That whisper, “Old man, come back.”
That must be why the big things pass
And the little things remain,
Like the smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg,
Riding in, in the rain.”
— Rudyard Kipling, “Lichtenberg,” The Five Nations (1903)
Essential Details
Kipling on Smell and Memory at a Glance
- Speaker: Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
- Source: “Lichtenberg,” The Five Nations, 1903
- Status: Public domain
- Note: Lichtenberg is a place in South Africa, not a person
Why the Quote Resonates
Kipling names a specific smell, the wattle (a flowering acacia) on a rainy ride, and says it outlasts the big events of a life. The poem is about a soldier’s memory, and it makes the same claim as Helen Keller and Marcel Proust: small scents hold large memories.
A Line Often Misattributed
The first two lines are sometimes credited to the philosopher Georg Lichtenberg because of the poem’s title. They are Kipling’s, and Lichtenberg in the title is a town. Read the full story in Who Wrote “Smells Are Surer Than Sounds or Sights”?. For more on scent and memory across history, see The History of Perfume.
Why it matters
Kipling’s line is among the most quoted on scent and memory, and it is often credited to the wrong person.