Poem: “If” by Rudyard Kipling

If—
by Rudyard Kipling

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!

(“If” by Rudyard Kipling, read by Joel Ying, 3-23-18)

Originally published in 1910 in the “Brother Square-Toes” chapter of Rewards and Fairies, this poem captures the Victorian Age. Here a father gives advice to his son on how to live a whole and balanced life. The poem is written for a certain time, but the underlying wisdom is timeless. A friend recently read this poem to me. He took a long pause because of the emotion that welled up. This poem is a father’s transmission of wisdom to a son, a rite of passage from boyhood into manhood, an act of love.

Rudyard Kipling (1835 – 1936) is an English Nobel Laureate best known for his works of fiction, including The Jungle Book (1894). This poem on life has inspired many, and even made its way into the movie, Bridget Jone’s Diary, with the comment “Poem is good. Very good, almost like self-help book.”

Books by Rudyard Kipling