Best 61 quotes of Robert Baden-powell on MyQuotes

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.

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.

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

An individual step in character training is to put responsibility on the individual.

A Scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens.

A Scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances.

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.

A thing that many young fellows don't seem to realism at first is that success depends on oneself and not on a kindly fate, nor on the interest of powerful friends.

A week of camp life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room.

"Be Prepared." "Be prepared for what?" "Why, for any old thing.

Be Prepared... the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise.

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.

Correcting bad habits cannot be done by forbidding or punishment.

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.

Girls should be brought up to be comrades and helpers, not to be dolls. They should take a real and not a visionary share in the welfare of the nation.

Happiness is not mere pleasure, not the outcome of wealth. It is the result of active work rather than passive enjoyment of pleasure.

Happiness is open to all, since, when you boil it down, it merely consists of contentment with what you have got and doing what you can for other people.

If a man cannot make his point to keen boys in ten minutes, he ought to be shot!

If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.

I have known lots of millionaires who were not happy men; they had not got all they wanted and therefore had failed to find success in life. A Singalese proverb says: "He who is happy is rich, but it does not follow that he who is rich is happy." The really rich man is the man who has fewest wants.

I have often urged my young friends, when faced with an adversary, to "play polo" with him; i.e., not to go at him bald-headed but to ride side by side with him and gradually edge him off your track. Never lose your temper with him. If you are in the right there is no need to, if you are in the wrong you can't afford to.

I have over and over again explained that the purpose of the Boy Scout and Girl Guide Movement is to build men and women as citizens endowed with the three H's namely, Health, Happiness and Helpfulness. The man or woman who succeeds in developing these three attributes has secured the main steps to success this Life.

In a difficult situation one never-failing guide is to ask yourself: "What would Christ have done?" Then do it-as nearly as you can.

In Scouting, a boy is encouraged to educate himself instead of being instructed.

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.

It is risky to order a boy not to do something; it immediately opens to him the adventure of doing it.

Leave this world a little better than you found it.

Look wide, and even when you think you are looking wide - look wider still.

Look wide, beyond your immediate surroundings and limits, and you see things in their right proportion. Look above the level of things around you and see a higher aim and possibility to your work.

Loyalty is a feature in a boy's character that inspires boundless hope.

Make good scouts of yourselves, become good rifle shots so that if it becomes necessary that you defend your families and your country that you can do it.

Mind you, I have had in my sojourn on earth as good a time of it as any man, so I can speak with some knowledge. A writer in the Manchester Guardian who is unknown to me lately described me as "the richest man in the world." That sounds a pretty big order, but when I come to think it out I believe he is not far wrong. A rich man is not necessarily a man with a whole pot of money but a man who is really happy. And I am that.

No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way.

O God, help me to win, but in thy wisdom if thou willest me not to win, then O God, make me a good loser.

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.

Scouting is not an abstruse or difficult science: rather it is a jolly game if you take it in the right light. In the same time it is educative, and (like Mercy) it is apt to benefit him that giveth as well as him that receives.

See things from the boy's point of view.

Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I'll show you a poorly uniformed leader.

"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.

Success in training the boy depends largely on the Scoutmaster's own personal example.

The first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours.

The great thing that strikes you on looking back is how quickly you have come-how very brief is the span of life on this earth. The warning that one would give, therefore, is that it is well not to fritter it away on things that don't count in the end; nor on the other hand is it good to take life too seriously as some seem to do. Make it a happy life while you have it. That is where success is possible to every man.

The more responsibility the Scoutmaster gives his patrol leaders, the more they will respond.

The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.

The patrol system leads each boy to see that he has some individual responsibility for the good of his patrol.

The Scoutmaster guides the boy in the spirit of an older brother... He has simply to be a boy-man, that is: (1) He must have the boy spirit in him: and must be able to place himself in the right plane with his boys as a first step. (2) He must realise the needs, outlooks and desires of the different ages of boy life. (3) He must deal with the individual boy rather than with the mass. (4) He then needs to promote a corporate spirit among his individuals to gain the best results.

The Scoutmaster teaches boys to play the game by doing so himself.

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

The secret of sound education is to get each pupil to learn for himself, instead of instructing him by driving knowledge into him on a stereotyped system.

The uniform makes for brotherhood, since when universally adopted it covers up all differences of class and country.