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