Words to Live By
What a weekend this has been. So much drama.
You never really appreciate poems like Don’t Quit, If, or Invictus until you go though a situation that warrants the lessons of such poems. I know all of these by heart and try to live by them as much as I can. I know I’ve referenced these at some point in my journal writings, but I definitely think they’re worth mentioning again. ..especailly If. I live by If…
If you’re going though a rough time or just need some inspiration to make it another day, check these out.
Don’t Quit
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low, and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit!
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure has turned about,
When they might have won had they stuck it out.
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with another blow!
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When they might have captured the victor’s cup.
And they learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close they were to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint to the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit,
It’s when things seem the worst, that you must not quit!
If ~ 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!
Invictus ~ William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
