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 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!
-- Rudyard Kipling

Grooks by Peit Hein

Grooks are small poems written by Peit Hein, a Danish scienist, mathematician, inventor and poet. They are both profound and humorous. These are some of my favourites.........

THE ROAD TO WISDOM
The road to wisdom? -- Well, it's plain and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.


A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIP

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No -- not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping.


LIVING IS --

Living is
a thing you do
now or never --
which do you?


THE PARADOX OF LIFE
Philosophical grook.

A bit beyond perception's reach
I sometimes believe I see
that Life is two locked boxes, each
containing the other's key.


TAUGHT

We are taught to live,
we are
taught to feel.
We are taught to conform and conceal.
We are taught so well
what we
ought to feel
that we cannot feel what we feel.


THE EGOCENTRICS

People are self-centered
to a nauseous degree.
They will keep on about themselves
while I'm explaining me.