Rabindranath Tagore Quotes

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Poems On Love

Love adorns itself;
it seeks to prove inward joy by outward beauty.

Love does not claim possession,
but gives freedom.

Love is an endless mystery,
for it has nothing else to explain it.

Love's gift cannot be given,
it waits to be accepted.

that which is eternal within the moment only becomes shallow if spread out in time.

لقد أنفقت ثروة طائلة في السفر إلي شواطئ بعيدة , فرأيت جبالا شاهقة ومحيطات لايحدها حد . ولكني لم أجد متسعاً من الوقت لأن أخطو بضع خطوات قليلة خارج منزلي , لأنظر إلي قطرة واحدة من الندي , علي ورقة واحدة من أوراق العشب

When sorrow is deepest...then the surface crust is pierced, and consolation wells up, and all the forces of patience and courage are banded together to do their duty. Thus great suffering brings with it the power of great endurance. So while we are cowards before petty troubles, great sorrows make us brave by rousing our truer manhood.

God finds himself by creating.

Melody and harmony are like lines and colors in pictures. A simple linear picture may be completely beautiful; the introduction of color may make it vague and insignificant. Yet color may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.

لقد انتهى وقت العمل، فإليك وجهي يا أماه، خبئيه بين ذراعيك، ودعيني أحلم!

The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added mystery in each new revelation. To me the verses of the Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha have ever been things of the spirit, and therefore endowed with boundless vital growth; and I have used them, both in my own life and in my preaching, as being instinct with individual meaning for me, as for others, and awaiting for their confirmation, my own special testimony, which must have its value because of its individuality.

As early as 1902 (Bengali Samvat 1309) Rabindranath Tagore wrote that there was no Indian in the history of India written by foreigners: “as if Indians do not exist; only those who have fought and killed among themselves are real ... we are not parasites of India; through hundreds of centuries we have put down tens of thousands of roots in the heart of this land, but unfortunately we have to read a type of history which makes our children forget exactly this. It appears that in (the history of) India we are nobodies; only those who have come from outside matter in (the history of this) land.

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers
but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain
but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield
but to my own strength.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

Grant that I may not be a coward,
feeling your mercy in my success alone;

But let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.

Never be afraid of the moments — thus sings the voice of the everlasting.

Men are cruel, but Man is kind.

Our village poet sings: “Man will brightly flash into your sight, my heart, if you shut the door of desires.” We have seen how primitive man was occupied with his physical needs, and thus restricted himself to the present which is the time boundary of the animal; and he missed the urge of his consciousness to seek its emancipation in a world of ultimate human value.