Dad graduated in 1960 at a boarding school that was part of a thousand-year-old Benedictine monastery (Pannonhalma, Hungary, now a UNESCO world heritage site). This poem was recited at their school leaving ceremony. Quite against the wish of my parents, I'm an only child (my brother was stillborn with no pregnancy after that). When I was admitted to a state secondary grammar school under the Socialist régime in 1984, If was recited at the year opening ceremony. My father told me he considered it a good omen. It turned out into one, indeed. Thank you, Sir Michael, for this magnificent rendering of the poem.
I love the creative interpretation Caine takes with the line “If you can fill the unforgiving minute/With sixty seconds' worth of distance run” The poem reads sixty, Caine says forty. As though to say it’s okay to not reach perfection, even as we strive to.
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; Kipling's "If" Quote "Donald McGill created one of the most popular postcards of the previous century. The card depicted a man and woman sitting beneath a tree with a book, and the caption said: “Do you like Kipling?” “I don’t know, you naughty boy, I’ve never kippled!” Unquote
My dad gave this poem on my 18th birthday. So much wisdom in it. He just passed two months ago so thanks for the reminder.
You are so welcome
Dad graduated in 1960 at a boarding school that was part of a thousand-year-old Benedictine monastery (Pannonhalma, Hungary, now a UNESCO world heritage site). This poem was recited at their school leaving ceremony.
Quite against the wish of my parents, I'm an only child (my brother was stillborn with no pregnancy after that). When I was admitted to a state secondary grammar school under the Socialist régime in 1984, If was recited at the year opening ceremony.
My father told me he considered it a good omen.
It turned out into one, indeed.
Thank you, Sir Michael, for this magnificent rendering of the poem.
I love the creative interpretation Caine takes with the line “If you can fill the unforgiving minute/With sixty seconds' worth of distance run”
The poem reads sixty, Caine says forty. As though to say it’s okay to not reach perfection, even as we strive to.
Beautiful 🤩
MC. He is not only a British, but a world treasure
Too many second rate actors get described as treasures
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;
Kipling's "If"
Quote "Donald McGill created one of the most popular postcards of the previous century. The card depicted a man and woman sitting beneath a tree with a book, and the caption said:
“Do you like Kipling?”
“I don’t know, you naughty boy, I’ve never kippled!” Unquote
Thought it was about intermittent fasting 😀