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If. By Rudyard Kipling

Posted by Dobrien 1 year, 10 months ago to Entertainment
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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!

SOURCE URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SfPf-_OavY


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  • Posted by $ puzzlelady 1 year, 10 months ago
    I understand that "IF" was read at Ayn Rand's funeral. Twenty-five years before that, I learned it in high school. By now I have encountered, in my own life, most of the situations Kipling cites. It's all true. And at no point does it support the practice of war and aggression. "If" was written in 1910 and is a manifesto for a lasting civilized society of individualism, notwithstanding that Kipling was born in India and surrounded by a colonialist culture. It helps to read "If" every few months.
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  • Posted by $ katrinam41 1 year, 10 months ago
    Kipling has always been in my library, all his tomes read over and over. "If" is one of my favorites . Thank you, Dobrien.
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    • Posted by 1 year, 10 months ago
      I am delighted to share truth and beauty.
      Sadly most of the truth today is ugly. With a controlled media , so much of the truth being hidden , enables the Evil to perpetuate.
      Evil can only be successful is if good men do nothing ,or something like that.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 1 year, 10 months ago
    This one came up every now and then in Boy Scouts back before it degenerated into wokeness. Also included was the origin of the Boy Scout handshake (from the Zulu).
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