Don't you Quit

The poem was pasted in my school's second floor corridor while I studied there. It was printed in bold text, without any graphics, on a shining white paper and framed in a simple wooden frame.

During those days, I used the little authority I had as the Literary Secretary / Astt Literary Secretary, and chose to oversee students climbing the second floor corridor so that I could read this poem. So that I could read it ten times and draw strength to go through another day. So that, I could read it a hundred times if that was not enough. It always worked. And it taught me, time and again, that sometimes, all you need is the courage it takes to walk one more mile, to work one more day, to hang on ... for one more minute.

It was years later when that I learnt that this poem is quite famous and is just two clicks away from the main page of any quotation's site.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill
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 every one of us sometimes learns
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won, had he 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 he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt
And you never can tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

Two years back, I visited my school again. This poem is still pasted on the same spot, on the same paper, in the same frame. Columns of girls still pass it everday in the same second floor corridor and in my heart, I know, there is at least one girl, who reads it ten times aloud and finds the strength to get through one more day. I wish her a future at least as bright as mine, and I leave her a message ...

Hey Girl!
Stick to the fight.
It's worth it.
What you are looking for, is just one turn away.
I can vouch...

IF

By 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!