Robert Baden-Powell Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

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

Robert Baden-Powell
"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.

Robert Baden-Powell
Happiness is not mere pleasure not the outcome of wealth. It is the result of active work rather than passive enjoyment of pleasure.

Robert Baden-Powell
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.

Robert Baden-Powell
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 best

Robert Baden-Powell
The scouts' motto is founded on my initials. It is: Be Prepared, which means, you are always to be in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.

Robert Baden-Powell
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.

Robert Baden-Powell
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.

Robert Baden-Powell
Leave this world a little better than you found it.

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

Robert Baden-Powell
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.

Robert Baden-Powell
Your forefathers worked hard, fought hard, and died hard to make this Empire for you. Don't let them look down from heaven, and see you loafing about with hands in your pockets doing nothing to keep it up.

Robert Baden-Powell
Almost any biography will have its useful suggestions for making life a success, but none better or more unfailing than the biography of Christ.

Robert Baden-Powell
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.

Robert Baden-Powell
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.

Robert Baden-Powell
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.

Robert Baden-Powell
It is the Patrol System that makes the Troop, and all Scouting for that matter, a real co-operative matter.

Robert Baden-Powell
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.

Robert Baden-Powell
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.

Robert Baden-Powell