- If
- If you can keep your head when all about you
- Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
- If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
- But make allowance for their doubting too;
- If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
- Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
- Or being hated don't give way to hating,
- And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.
- 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;
- If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
- Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
- Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
- And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools.
- If you can make one heap of all your winnings
- And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
- And lose, and start again at your beginnings
- And never breathe a word about your loss;
- If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
- To serve your turn long after they are gone,
- And so hold on when there is nothing in you
- Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
- If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
- Or walk with Kings--nor lose the common touch,
- If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
- If all men count with you, but none too much;
- If you can fill the unforgiving minute
- With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
- Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
- And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
1910
Joseph Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling