The Book of Liberty
alenda lux ubi orta libertas

If

  • 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!