Rabindranath Tagore Quotes

Tell him Sudha has not forgotten him.

Beauty is simply reality seen with the eyes of love

I remember I once told him: 'Women's minds are so petty, so crooked!' 'Like the feet of Chinese women,' he replied. 'Has not the pressure of society cramped them into pettiness and crookedness? They are but pawns of the fate which gambles with them. What responsibility have they of their own?

অধিকারলাভের যে মর্যাদা আছে, সেই মর্যাদা রক্ষা করিতে হইলে অধিকারপ্রয়োগকে সংযত করিতে হয়। যতটা পাওয়া যায় ততটা লইয়া টানাটানি করা কাঙালকেই শোভা পায় — ভোগকে খর্ব করিলেই সম্পদের যথার্থ গৌরব।

We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.

অসংখ্য অপরিচিত জ্যোতিষ্কের নিঃশব্দতা মাঝে
মেলিনু নয়ন; জানিলাম একাকীর নাই ভয়,
ভয় জনতার মাঝে; একাকীর কোনো লজ্জা নাই,
লজ্জা শুধু যেথা সেথা যার তার চক্ষুর ইঙ্গিতে।

The Song of the Defeated

My master has bid me while I stand at the roadside,
to sing the song of Defeat,
for that is the bride whom He woos in secret.
She has put on the dark veil,
hiding her face from the crowd,
but the jewel glows on her breast in the dark.
She is forsaken of the day,
and God's night is waiting for her with its lamps lighted and flowers wet with dew.
She is silent with her eyes downcast;
she has left her home behind her,
from her home has come that wailing in the wind.
But the stars are singing the love-song of the eternal to a face sweet with shame and suffering.
The door has been opened in the lonely chamber,
the call has sounded,
and the heart of the darkness throbs with awe
because of the coming tryst.

Reason tells us that creation never can be perfectly happy. So long as it is incomplete it must put up with imperfection and sorrow. It can only be perfect when it ceases to be creation, and is God. Do our prayers dare go so far?

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age forever.

Only Thee

That I want thee, only thee — -let my heart repeat without end.
All desires that distract me, day and night,
are false and empty to the core.

As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light,
even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry — -`I want thee, only thee'.

As the storm still seeks its end in peace
when it strikes against peace with all its might,
even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love
and still its cry is — -`I want thee, only thee'.

I have only one prayer to offer to God, and it is that when I have been driven out of every society He will give me shelter at His own feet.

The world loved man when he smiled. The world became afraid of him when he laughed.

The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.

I leave no trace of wings in the air, but I am glad that I had my flight