If - An Inspirational Poem

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head

when all about you men are losing theirs

and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

but make allowances for their doubting, too.

If you can wait but not be tired of 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 but 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 imposters 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 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 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 to hold on when there is nothing in you

but the will that 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 60 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.

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