Robert Baden Powell Quotes

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

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

Leave this world a little better than you found it.

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

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.

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

If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye. Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over. I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too. I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man. Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one. But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn come to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. "Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and to die happy—stick to your Scout promise always—even after you have ceased to be a boy—and God help you do it.

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.

we aim for the practice of Christianity in their everyday life and dealings, and not merely the profession of its theology on Sundays.

If it were not for the depressing heat and the urgency of the work, one could sit down and laugh to tears at the absurdity of the thing, and under the circumstances it is a little wearing. But our motto is the old west coast proverb, Softly, softly, catchee monkey; in other words, don't flurry; patience gains the day.

Be Prepared

Boy Scout is not merely to give you fun and adventure but that, like the backwoodsmen, explorers, and frontiersmen whom you are following, you will be fitting yourself to help your country and to be of service to other people who may be in need of help. That is what the best men are out to do.

Si la vida fuera siempre fácil, sería insípida

Be Prepared in Mind by having disciplined yourself to be obedient to every order, and also by having thought out beforehand any accident or situation that might occur, so that you know the right thing to do at the right moment, and are willing to do it. Be Prepared in Body by making yourself strong and active and able to do the right thing at the right moment, and do it.

If God made the boy a creature of extreme and restless energy, with an inquisitive and eager mind, a sensitive little heart, and a romantic imagination, it is up to you (Cub leaders) to make full use of these insted of crushing them.

The worst map-readers I have come across are the Italians.

FATHER OF THE BOY SCOUTS Arthur Conan Doyle was knighted, and not for the merits of Sherlock Holmes. The writer was invited to join the ranks of the nobility as thanks for the propaganda he wrote for the imperial cause. One of his heroes was Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts. They met while fighting savages in Africa: “There was always something of the sportsman in his keen appreciation of war,” Sir Arthur said. Gifted in the art of following the tracks of others and erasing his own, Baden-Powell was a great success at the sport of hunting lions, boars, deer, Zulus, Ashantis, and Ndebeles. Against the Ndebeles, he fought a rough battle in southern Africa. Two hundred and nine blacks and one Englishman died. The colonel took as a souvenir the horn the enemy blew to sound the alarm. And that spiral-shaped horn from a kudu antelope was incorporated into Boy Scout ritual as the symbol of boys who love nature.

Prepared fact: Scouts founder Robert Baden-Powell wrote an eloquent final letter to the organization before his death in 1941. He urged Scouts to “try and 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 best. ‘Be Prepared’ in this way, to live happy and to die happy—stick to your Scout Promise always—even after you have ceased to be a boy—and

If the women of the different nations are to a large extent members of the same society and therefore in close touch and sympathy with each other, although belonging to different countries, they will make the League a real bond not merely between the Governments, but between the Peoples themselves and they will see to it that it means Peace and that we have no more of War. Robert Baden Powell. May, 1919

When is there a boy, even in these materialistic times, to whom the call of the wild and the open road does not appeal? Maybe it is the primitive instinct, anyway it is there. With that key a great door may be unlocked, if it is only to admit fresh air and sunshine into lives that were otherwise grey. The heroes of the wild, the frontiersmen and explorers, the rovers of the seas, the airmen of the clouds, are pied pipers to the boys. Where they lead the boys will follow and these will dance to their tune when it sings the song of manliness and pluck, of adventure and high endeavors of efficiency and skill, of cheerful sacrifice of self for others. There's meat in this for the boy. There's soul in it.

Watch that lad going down the street, his eyes are looking far out. Is his vision across the prairie or over the grey-backed seas? At any rate, it isn't here. Don't I know it!

Leave the world in better conditions in wich you found it." [Misattributed to Baden Powell the English mathematician and Church of England priest. Properly attributed Sir Robert Baden-Powell founder of the Scout Movement]

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and 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 best." [Misattributed to Baden Powell the English mathematician and Church of England priest. Properly attributed to Sir Robert Baden-Powell the founder of the Scout Movement]

General Robert Baden-Powell, later founder of the Boy Scouts, drastically cut African rations in an attempt to spare not just his own men but any white civilians trapped in the town with them. His plan was to starve the native population until they were forced to break out of the besieged city in search of food, thus reducing the number of mouths to feed.

Tyhle kapitoly vás zklamou, pokud si myslíte, že v nich najdete úplný a přesný návod, jak vést skautský oddíl. Chtěl bych tu jen ukázat a nabídnout základní směr cesty k úspěchu a zdůvodnit jej.

Když se snažíme vychovat z chlapců dobré lidi, děláme to částečně pro dobro své země.

Kdyby rybář napichoval na háček jako návnadu něco, co chutná jemu, asi by na to moc ryb nechytil. Proto užívá jako návnadu to, co chutná rybám. S chlapci je to stejné. Kdybyste jim kázali o tom, co sami považujete za po- vznášející, nechytili byste je.

Ukažte mi nedbale krojovaný oddíl a já „vypátrám“, že ani jeho vůdce nemá kroj v pořádku. Myslete na to, až se budete do kroje oblékat! Dáváte svým chlapcům příklad a pokud budete mít kroj pěkně upravený, od- razí se to i na vašich skautech.

James E. Russell z učitelské koleje Kolumbijské univerzity ve státu New York. Napsal: „Skautský program je záležitost mužů upravená pro potřeby kluků. Chlapce přitahuje ne proto, že je chlapec, ale proto, že v něm může jednat jako skutečný muž...

Tisíce chlapců ztrácíme každý den tím, že je necháváme vyrůstat v bezcharakterní, neužitečné lidi. Mnozí z nich by mohli být zachráněni, kdyby vyrůstali v dobrém prostředí a v dobrých podmínkách právě v tom životním období, kdy jsou vnímaví a schopní změny.