IF BY RUDYARD KIPLING

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 of waiting

Or being lied upon, 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 think- and not make thoughts you aim

If you can meet with triumph and Disaster

And treat these imposter the same.

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve broken

And stoop and build them 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 beginning

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 fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.

Yours is the Earth ad everything that’s in it.

And – which is more- you’ll be a Man, my son!

                                                                                                            Rudyard Kipling