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