If (1895)

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 dream—and 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 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 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 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 can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty 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!

---------------

(Powerfully read by actress Gabriela Kostadinova: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2QYZ_vlQSc)

Thanks for visiting

The Humanity Initiative

We urgently need a more profound commitment to working together, with respect and imagination, with kindness and love.

In this online oasis, The Humanity Initiative offers clarity and insight on our most crucial challenges, providing compelling inspiration for each of us to join in fostering a resurgent new voice of humanity.

We do so with the aid of almost 300 brilliant women and men from across the ages and the continents -- cross-referencing their diverse contributions specifically to help in your search for the best way to take action, to discover or re-imagine your personal path into positive change.

The Humanity Initiative is a registered non-profit. We rely on your support to continue our mission of reawakening mankind to its better angels.