Rabindranath Tagore Quotes

I am willing to serve my country, but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.

I will sit in the pupil of your eyes and that will carry your sight into the heart of the things

And because I love this life
I know I shall love death as well.
The child cries out when
From the right breast the mother
Takes it away, in the very next moment
To Find in the left one
Its consolation.

for we women are not only the deities of the household fire, but the flame of the soul itself.

Nirvana is not the blowing out of the candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come.

Inspiration follows aspiration.

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.

The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.

ومَن غيرُ الإله يزورُ منازِلَ الفُقَراءِ؟

"I have lost my dewdrop", cries the flower to the morning sky that lost all its stars

He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.

I travelled the old road every day, I took my fruits to the market,
my cattle to the meadows, I ferried my boat across the stream and
all the ways were well known to me.
One morning my basket was heavy with wares. Men were busy in
the fields, the pastures crowded with cattle; the breast of earth
heaved with the mirth of ripening rice.
Suddenly there was a tremor in the air, and the sky seemed to
kiss me on my forehead. My mind started up like the morning out of
mist.
I forgot to follow the track. I stepped a few paces from the
path, and my familiar world appeared strange to me, like a flower
I had only known in bud.
My everyday wisdom was ashamed. I went astray in the fairyland
of things. It was the best luck of my life that I lost my path that
morning, and found my eternal childhood.

Come oh come ye tea-thirsty restless ones — the kettle boils, bubbles and sings, musically.

دَعني أتقدّم بصلاتي
لا لأكون بمنجى من الأخطار
ولكن لأقابلها وجهاً لوجه دون وجل
لا لأسأل التفريج عن ألمي
ولكن ليكون لي الجلد على تحمله
لا لأنتظر حليفاً لي في معركة الحياة
ولكن لأنتظر العون من قوتي نفسها
لا لأتوسل في رعب شديد بغية النجاة
ولكن لأتعلل بالصبر حتى أظفر بحرّيتي
هيّء لي يا رب، ألا أكون جباناً
لا استشعر بنعمتك إلا حين أصيب النجاح
بل دعني أظفر بضمّة يدك،
في خذلاني

These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination.

Those who in the name of Faith embrace illusion,
kill and are killed.
Even the atheist gets God's blessings-
Does not boast of his religion;

With reverence he lights the lamp of Reason
And pays his homage not to scriptures,
But to the good in man.

The bigot insults his own religion
When he slays a man of another faith.
Conduct he judges not in the light of Reason;
In the temple he raises the blood-stained banner
And worships the devil in the name of God.

All that is shameful and barbarous through the Ages,
Has found a shelter in their temples-
Those they turn into prisons;
O, I hear the trumpet call of Destruction!
Time comes with her great broom
Sweeping all refuse away.

That which should make man free,
They turn into fetters;
That which should unite,
They turn into sword;
That which should bring love
From the fountain of the Eternal,
They turn into prison

And with its waves they flood the world.
They try to cross the river
In a bark riddled with holes;
And yet, in their anguish, whom do they blame?

O Lord, breaking false religion,
Save the blind!
Break! O break
The alter that is drowned in blood.

Let your thunder strike
Into the prison of false religion,

And bring to this unhappy land
The light of Knowledge.