Who is the author of the famous quote, “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”?

This is one of Rudyard Kipling's most famous quotations. It is from a speech that he made to the Royal College of Surgeons in London in 1923. Here, he is using a metaphor to compare words to drugs. He is describing the persuasive effect words can have on people.

Here, in this sentence, Kipling is saying, "Not only do words infect, egotize, narcotize, and paralyze, but they enter into and colour the minutest cells of the brain. . . ." He is describing the ability of a person to use words to change the way another person thinks and feels. He is telling us that words clearly influence how we as individuals do or feel things that are not normal for us — just as drugs do.

Specifically, during his life, Kipling's reputation grew from phenomenal early critical success to international celebrity. Then, it faded for a time as some of his conservative views were seem by critics to be old-fashioned. Today, his celebrity seems to be receiving a more balanced level or review.

More and more people are coming to appreciate his mastery of poetry and prose, and the sheer range of his literary work. His autobiography Something of Myself was written in 1935, the last year of his life and was published posthumously.