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 imposters 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 thay 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!

- Rudyard Kipling