Robert Baden-Powell Quotes - Page 3

The secret of getting successful work out of your trained men lies in one nutshell—in the clearness of the instructions they receive.

A man carries out suggestions the more wholeheartedly when he understands their aim.

To get hold of your boys you must be their friend.

As Sir Henry Newbolt sums it up: "The real test of success is whether a life has been a happy one and a happy giving one."

After forming a cadet corps of boys for assisting as noncombatants during a military campaign in 1900: We then made the discovery that boys, when trusted and relied on, were just as capable and reliable as men.

Varied are the ideas of what constitutes "success," e.g. money, position, power, achievement, honours, and the like. But these are not open to every man-nor do they bring what is real success, namely, happiness.

It is called in our schools 'beastliness', and this is about the best name for it... should it become a habit it quickly destroys both health and spirits; he becomes feeble in body and mind, and often ends in a lunatic asylum.

Possibly the best suggestion in condensed form, as to how to live, was given by my old Headmaster, Dr. Haig Brown, in 1904, when he wrote his Recipe for Old Age. A diet moderate and spare, Freedom from base financial care, Abundant work and little leisure, A love of duty more than pleasure, An even and contented mind In charity with all mankind, Some thoughts too sacred for display In the broad light of common day, A peaceful home, a loving wife, Children, who are a crown of life; These lengthen out the years of man Beyond the Psalmist's narrow span.

Football is a grand game for developing a lad physically and also morally, for he learns to play with good temper and unselfishness, to play in his place, and to play the game, and these are the best of training for any game of life.

Young men, of course, don't want to be guided by old back numbers, but at the same time I know that in my own case I gained a lot by studying the characters of the chiefs under whom I served from time to time. Lord Wolseley, for instance, said: "Use your common sense rather than book instructions."

"Softly, softly, catchee monkey," is the West African rendering of a very valuable precept. An awful lot of men fail through lack of patient persistence.

Always do I recall the parting words uttered by my old governor: "My boy, never . . ." I won't set 'em down. I disregarded them fool-like and paid, and paid; had I a son I'd hand 'em on and ram 'em home. What fools we be when young. We fancy we be wise, forgetting that the old boys have graduated in the 'varsity of the world, the greatest 'varsity of all, and each day we should learn from they.

Commemorative stone in the floor of the Chapel of St. George in Westminster Abbey, London, dedicated in 1947: TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT Baden-Powell CHIEF SCOUT OF THE WORLD 1857-1941 Upon one side of the stone was the badge of the Boy Scouts, the arrow-head to point the true way as it had pointed the way for sailors and navigators from the time of the earliest maps; and on the other the badge of the Girl Guides-the three-leafed clover.