Robert Baden-Powell
A boy carries out suggestions more wholeheartedly when he understands their aim.
One aim of the Boy Scouts scheme is to revive amongst us, if possible, some of the rules of the knights of old.
Erudition - that is, reading, writing, and arithmetic - is taught in the schools; but where is the more important quality, character, taught? Nowhere in particular. There is no authorized training for children in character.
One of the finest statesmen of the present time is also a first-class scout, and that is Mr. Roosevelt, the late President of the United States of America.
One of the powerful temptations is that of the cinema palace. The cinema has undoubtedly an enormous attraction for boys, and people are constantly cudgelling their brains how to stop it. But it is one of those things which would be very difficult to stop even if it were altogether desirable.
Personally, I like reading adventures which really have happened to people, because they show what kind of things might happen to oneself, and they teach one how to 'Be Prepared' to meet them.
No man is much good unless he believes in God and obeys His laws.
Correcting bad habits cannot be done by forbidding or punishment.
The Scoutmaster teaches boys to play the game by doing so himself.
See things from the boy's point of view.
The method of instruction in Scouting is that of creating in the boy the desire to learn for himself.
Try to leave this world a little better than you found it and, when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your bestCollection: Feelings
Leave this world a little better than you found it.Collection: Creativity
Look wide, and even when you think you are looking wide - look wider still.Collection: Leadership
A week of camp life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room.Collection: Wisdom
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.Collection: Leadership
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.Collection: Life
Happiness is not mere pleasure, not the outcome of wealth. It is the result of active work rather than passive enjoyment of pleasure.Collection: Outcomes
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.Collection: Girl
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.Collection: Happiness
"Be Prepared." "Be prepared for what?" "Why, for any old thing."Collection: Old Things
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.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Secret
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.Collection: Light
Yet one more item is needed to complete success, and that is the rendering of service to others in the community. Without this the mere satisfaction of selfish desire does not reach the top notch.Collection: Success
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.Collection: Peace
We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is a patriotism above the narrow sentiment which usually stops at one's country, and thus inspires jealousy and enmity in dealing with others... Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world.Collection: Girl
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.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Failure
The patrol system leads each boy to see that he has some individual responsibility for the good of his patrol.Collection: Responsibility
Sunday is a day of rest. Loafing is not rest.Collection: Sunday
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.Collection: Friendship
Loyalty is a feature in a boy's character that inspires boundless hope.Collection: Loyalty
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.Collection: Wisdom
It is risky to order a boy not to do something; it immediately opens to him the adventure of doing it.Collection: Wisdom
Almost any biography will have its useful suggestions for making life a success, but none better or more unfailing than the biography of Christ.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Brother
Your natural inclination is to preach and to warn other travellers of snags in the path, but isn't it better to signal to them some of the joys by the way which they might otherwise miss?Collection: Joy
It is the Patrol System that makes the Troop, and all Scouting for that matter, a real co-operative matter.Collection: Real
If a man cannot make his point to keen boys in ten minutes, he ought to be shot!Collection: Boys
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.Collection: Time
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.Collection: Friendship
The secret of getting successful work out of your trained men lies in one nutshell—in the clearness of the instructions they receive.Collection: Lying
To get hold of your boys you must be their friend.Collection: Wisdom
A man carries out suggestions the more wholeheartedly when he understands their aim.Collection: Wisdom
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."Collection: Life
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.Collection: Military
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.Collection: Happiness