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: |
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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: |
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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!» |
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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; |
|
’ 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! |