If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same;
Commentary
Commentary
Success and failure both distort judgment when treated as final verdicts. Balance keeps a person workable in either condition.
Kipling calls both states impostors because each can lie to identity. Triumph can inflate, disaster can erase, and neither tells the whole truth of the road.
The line remains steadying because it disciplines interpretation, not only emotion.
Commentary
Commentary