英国作家拉雅德-吉卜林 至儿子

如果在众人六神无主时，你能镇定自若而不是人云亦云；

如果被众人猜忌怀疑时，你能自信如常而不去妄加辩论；

如果你有梦想，又能不迷失自我，有神思，又不至于走火入魔；

如果在成功之时能不喜形于色，而在灾难之后也勇于咀嚼苦果；

如果辛苦劳作已是功成名就，为了新目标依然冒险一搏；

如果你与村夫交谈而不变谦恭之态，和王侯散步而不露谄媚之颜；

如果他人的意志左右不了你，与任何人为伍你都能卓然独立；

如果骚扰动摇不了你的信念----

那么，你的修养就会如天地般博大，而你，就是一个真正的男子汉，我的儿子！

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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 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 wornout 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 breath 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!

                                                                                  -----by Rudyard Kipling