BY RUDYARD KIPLIN
[ ‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies ]
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: A Choice of Kipling’s Verse [ 1943 ]
The most important knowledge you will ever need is the knowledge of God. Know the Source and you will know Who You Are … Imago Dei.