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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsIf- by Rudyard Kipling
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 dreamand not make dreams your master;
If you can thinkand 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 a 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 Kingsnor 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,
Andwhich is moreyou'll be a Man, my son!
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If- by Rudyard Kipling (Original Post)
Anon-C
Jul 2018
OP
FM123
(10,050 posts)1. One of my favorites!
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,308 posts)2. Great poem...thanks so much for posting it, esp. in these times. n/t
Wolf Frankula
(3,595 posts)3. If you can keep your head
When all about are losing theirs. You just don't understand the situation.
Wolf
bluecollar2
(3,622 posts)4. Had to learn that when I was twelve
Still find reasons to recite it to myself.
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)5. Kipling is one of my favorites...
... I may not agree with all his sentiments, but the man had style.
-- Mal