Quotes from Robert Baden-Powell

Swimming has its educational value - mental, moral, and physical - in giving you a sense of mastery over an element, and of power of saving life, and in the development of wind and limb.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life.

The best workers, like the happiest livers, look upon their work as a kind of game: the harder they play the more enjoyable it becomes.

Of course, animals have to be killed for food or to prevent their doing injury to others or to property. But such killing is too often carried out without regard to the pain inflicted.

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.

If you make yourself indispensable to your employer, he is not going to part with you in a hurry no matter what it costs him.

A good boxing competition gives one the sight of fine men in their prime, trained to the ounce, showing the highest skill, pluck and endurance in carrying out their attack and defence under strict rules of fair play and good temper.

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

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.

If you are in the country, you should notice landmarks - that is, objects which help you to find your way or prevent you getting lost, such as distant hills, church towers, and nearer objects, such as peculiar buildings, trees, gates, rocks, etc.

The most successful detectives owe their success to noticing small signs. Scouts are natural detectives and never let the smallest detail escape them. These small things are called by Scouts 'Sign.'

A Scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances.

Giving responsibility is the key to success with boys, especially with the rowdiest and most difficult boys.

One aim of the Boy Scouts scheme is to revive amongst us, if possible, some of the rules of the knights of old.

It always seems to me so odd that when a man dies, he takes out with him all the knowledge that he has got in his lifetime whilst sowing his wild oats or winning successes. And he leaves his sons or younger brothers to go through all the work of learning it over again from their own experience.

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 you can enjoy life when you are a man.

Trust should be the basis for all our moral training.

In assisting his 'neighbour' every day to the best of his ability, and keeping truth, honesty, and kindness perpetually before him, the Boy Scout, with as little formality as possible, is pleasing God.

The method of instruction in Scouting is that of creating in the boy the desire to learn for himself.

We never fail when we try to do our duty, we always fail when we neglect to do it.

Scoutcraft is a means through which the veriest hooligan can be brought to higher thought and to the elements of faith in God; and, coupled with the Scout's obligation to do a good turn every day, it gives the base of Duty to God and to Neighbour on which the parent or pastor can build with greater ease the form of belief that is desired.

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

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

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