If you can keep your head when all around others
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 and not be tired by waiting
or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
or being hated don't give way to hating
yet don't look too good or 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 imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken,
twisted by naves to make a trap for fools,
or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
and stoop and build them up again with worn out tools.
If you can make one pile of all your winnings,
and risk it all on one throw 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 serve your turn long after they are gone and,
so hold on when there is nothing left inside you,
except the will that says to them 'hold' on.
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
or walk with kings nor lose your 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,
then yours is the world and all that is in it,
and which is more - you'll be a man my son.
Rudyard Kipling (cakes!!)
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