Rabindranath Tagore Quotes & Sayings

I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet reality. Merely going on with your household duties, living your life in the world of household conventions and the drudgery of household tasks - you were not made for that! If we meet, and recognize each other, in the real world, then only will our love be true. — Rabindranath Tagore

Do not blame your food because you have no appetite. — Rabindranath Tagore

It came to be the natural rule of life with him, that no one should add to the burden of the world, but that each should try to lighten it. — Rabindranath Tagore

At this time of my parting, wish me good luck, my friends! The sky is flushed with the dawn and my path lies beautiful. Ask not what I have with me to take there. I start on my journey with empty hands and expectant heart. I shall put on my wedding garland. Mine is not the red-brown dress of the traveller, and though there are dangers on the way I have no fear in my mind. The evening star will come out when my voyage is done and the plaintive notes of the twilight melodies be struck up from the King's gateway. — Rabindranath Tagore

The question is, In what manner do we accept this world, which is a perfect gift of joy? Have we been able to receive it in our heart where we keep enshrined things that are of deathless value to us? We are frantically busy making use of the forces of the universe to gain more and more power; we feed and we clothe ourselves from its stores, we scramble for its riches, and it becomes for us a field of fierce competition. But were we born for this, to extend our proprietary rights over this world and make of it a marketable commodity? When our whole mind is bent only upon making use of this world it loses for us its true value. We make it cheap by our sordid desires; and thus to the end of our days we only try to feed upon it and miss its truth, just like the greedy child who tears leaves from a precious book and tries to swallow them. — Rabindranath Tagore

I leave no trace of wings in the air, but I am glad I have had my flight. — Rabindranath Tagore

YOU are the big drop of dew under the lotus leaf,
I am the smaller one on its upper side,'
said the dewdrop to the lake. — Rabindranath Tagore

Let the dead have the immortality of fame, but the living the immortality of love. — Rabindranath Tagore

Because each nation has its own history of thieving and lies and broken faith, therefore there can only flourish international suspicion and jealousy, and international moral shame becomes anaemic to a degree of ludicrousness. The nation's bagpipe of righteous indignation has so often changed its tune according to the variation of time and to the altered groupings of the alliances of diplomacy, that it can be enjoyed with amusement as the variety performance of the political music hall. — Rabindranath Tagore

The higher nature in man always seeks for something which transcends itself and yet is its deepest truth; which claims all its sacrifice, yet makes this sacrifice its own recompense. This is man's dharma, man's religion, and man's self is the vessel. — Rabindranath Tagore

On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time. But it is never lost, my lord. Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands.
Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness.
I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers. — Rabindranath Tagore

The attitude of the God-conscious man of the Upanishad towards the universe is one of a deep feeling of adoration. His object of worship is present everywhere. It is the one living truth that makes all realities true. This truth is not only of knowledge but of devotion. — Rabindranath Tagore

those who cannot find food for their enthusiasm in a knowledge of their country as it actually is, or those who cannot love men just because they are men - who needs must shout and deify their country in order to keep up their excitement - these love excitement more than their country. To — Rabindranath Tagore

God finds himself by creating. — Rabindranath Tagore

Freedom, sir," I began unceremoniously, without greeting or inquiry, "freedom is the biggest thing for man. Nothing can be compared to it - nothing at all!" Surprised at my outburst, my master looked up at me in silence. "One can understand nothing from books," I went on. "We read in the scriptures that our desires are bonds, fettering us as well as others. But such words, by themselves, are so empty. It is only when we get to the point of letting the bird out of its cage that we can realize how free the bird has set us. Whatever we cage, shackles us with desire whose bonds are stronger than those of iron chains. I tell you, sir, this is just what the world has failed to understand. They all seek to reform something outside themselves. But reform is wanted only in one's own desires, nowhere else, nowhere else! — Rabindranath Tagore

Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance. — Rabindranath Tagore

If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars. — Rabindranath Tagore

The problem is not how to wipe out all differences, but how to unite with all differences intact. — Rabindranath Tagore

The civilization of ancient Greece was nurtured within city walls. In fact, all the modern civilizations have their cradles of brick and mortar.
These walls leave their mark deep in the minds of men. They set up a principle of "divide and rule" in our mental outlook, which begets in us a habit of securing all our conquests by fortifying them and separating them from one another. We divide nation and nation, knowledge and knowledge, man and nature. It breeds in us a strong suspicion of whatever is beyond the barriers we have built, and everything has to fight hard for its entrance into our recognition. — Rabindranath Tagore

Sachish became so aware of her that his mystic trance broke. He could no longer regard her as a metaphor for a transcendental mood. — Rabindranath Tagore

Raicharan was twelve years old when he came as a servant to his master's house. He belonged to the same caste as his master and was given his master's little son to nurse. As time went on the boy left Raicharan's arms to go to school. From school he went on to college, and after college he entered the judicial service. Always, until he married, Raicharan was his sole attendant. — Rabindranath Tagore

He had come to the conclusion that, as the earth consisted of land and water, so human life was made up of eatings and beatings. — Rabindranath Tagore

Alas, why are my nights all thus lost? Ah, why do I ever miss his
sight whose breath touches my sleep? — Rabindranath Tagore

Man is a rough-hewn and woman a finished product. — Rabindranath Tagore

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. — Rabindranath Tagore

Yes, this is the logic of the Nation. And it
will never heed the voice of truth and goodness.
It will go on in its ring-dance of moral corruption,
linking steel unto steel, and machine unto
machine; trampling under its tread all the sweet
flowers of simple faith and the living ideals of
man. — Rabindranath Tagore

Men can only think. Women have a way of understanding without thinking. Woman was created out of God's own fancy. Man, He had to hammer into shape. — Rabindranath Tagore

Therefore the whole apparatus of piety, Hindu and Moslem alike - the temple and mosque, idol and holy water, scriptures and priests - were denounced by this inconveniently clear-sighted poet as mere substitutes for reality; dead things intervening between the soul and its love - — Rabindranath Tagore

The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end. My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said, "Here art thou!" The question and the cry, "Oh, where?" melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance, "I am!" XIII — Rabindranath Tagore

Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth. — Rabindranath Tagore

The lamps in one street after another were lighted till it seemed to him that a pervading darkness, like some demon, was keeping its eyes wide open to watch every movement of its victim. — Rabindranath Tagore

Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubt
at being told that it is a fragment
awaiting perfection. — Rabindranath Tagore

The water vessel, taken as a vessel only, raises the question, "Why does it exist at all?" Through its fitness of construction, it offers the apology for its existence. But where it is a work of beauty it has no question to answer; it has nothing to do, but to be. — Rabindranath Tagore

I sit at my window this morning where the world like a passer-by stops for a moment, nods to me and goes. — Rabindranath Tagore

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. — Rabindranath Tagore

If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars. — Rabindranath Tagore

Where roads are made I lose my way.
In the wide water, in the blue sky there is no line of a track.
The pathway is hidden by the birds' wings, by the star-fires, by the flowers of the wayfaring seasons.
And I ask my heart if its blood carries the wisdom of the unseen way. — Rabindranath Tagore

O poor, unthinking human heart! Error will not go away, logic and reason are slow to penetrate.We cling with both arms to false hope, refusing to believe in the weightiest proofs against it, embracing it with all our strength. In the end it escapes, ripping our veins and draining our heart's blood; until, regaining consciousness, we rush to fall into snares of delusion all over again — Rabindranath Tagore

Poems On Life:
Life is given to us,
we earn it by giving it.
Let the dead have the immortality of fame,
but the living the immortality of love.
Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty
that can modulate their isolation into a
harmony with the whole.
Life, like a child, laughs,
shaking its rattle of death as it runs. — Rabindranath Tagore

But what is this state? It is like a morning of spring, varied in its life and beauty, yet one and entire.
All the conflicts and contradictions of life are reconciled; knowledge, love and action harmonized; pleasure and pain become one in beauty, enjoyment and renunciation equal in goodness; the breach between the finite and the infinite fills with love and overflows; every moment carries its message of the eternal; the formless appears to us in the form of the flower, of the fruit; the boundless takes us up in his arms as a father and walks by our side as a friend.
While yet we have not attained the internal harmony, and the wholeness of our being, our life remains a life of habits. The world still appears to us as a machine, to be mastered where it is useful, to be guarded against where it is dangerous, and never to be known in its full fellowship with us, alike in its physical nature and in its spiritual life and beauty. — Rabindranath Tagore

I will deck thee with trophies, garlands of my defeat. It is never in my power to escape unconquered.
I surely know my pride will go to the wall, my life will burst its bonds in exceeding pain, and my empty heart will sob out in music like a hollow reed, and the stone will melt in tears.
I surely know the hundred petals of a lotus will not remain closed for ever and the secret recess of its honey will be bared.
From the blue sky an eye shall gaze upon me and summon me in silence. Nothing will be left for me, nothing whatever, and utter death shall I receive at thy feet. — Rabindranath Tagore

In Art, man reveals himself and not his objects. — Rabindranath Tagore

Man can destroy and plunder, earn and accumulate, invent and discover, but he is great because his soul comprehends all. — Rabindranath Tagore

I touch God in my songas the hill touched the far-away seawith its waterfall. — Rabindranath Tagore

The fact is, those who are like everyone else arouse no hatred unless there is a reason. But when a resplendent inner self pierces the grossness that envelops it, some, quite irrationally, extend it heartfelt adoration; others, just as irrationally, try heart and soul to insult it. — Rabindranath Tagore

The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail. — Rabindranath Tagore

The roots below the earth claim no rewards for making the branches fruitful. — Rabindranath Tagore

It was always the poor grass that suffered most when two kings went to war. — Rabindranath Tagore

Bravery ceases to be bravery at a certain point, and becomes mere foolhardiness. — Rabindranath Tagore

Give Me Strength This is my prayer to thee, my lord
strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart. Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows. Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service. Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might. Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles. And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love. — Rabindranath Tagore

The night kissed the fading day With a whisper: "I am death, your mother, From me you will get new birth." — Rabindranath Tagore

What I mean, King, is this. We are the true Renouncers, because change is our very secret. We lose, in order to find. We have no faith in the never-changing.

What do you mean?

Haven't you noticed the detachment of the rushing river, as it runs splashing from its mountain cave? It gives itself away so swiftly, and only thus it finds itself. What is never changing, for the river, is the desert sand, where it loses its course. — Rabindranath Tagore

If it is necessary to die in order to live like men, what harm in dying? — Rabindranath Tagore

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust.
I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am aware, and the time of offering go by.
Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower in thy service and pluck it while there is time. — Rabindranath Tagore

To understand anything is to find in it something which is our own, and it is the discovery of ourselves outside us which makes us glad. This relation of understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete. In love the sense of difference is obliterated and the human soul fulfils its purpose in perfection, transcending the limits of itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite. Therefore love is the highest bliss that man can attain to, for through it alone he truly knows that he is more than himself, and that he is at one with the All. — Rabindranath Tagore

Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs. It was they who led me from door to door, and with them have I felt about me, searching and touching my world.
It was my songs that taught me all the lessons I ever learnt; they showed me secret paths, they brought before my sight many a star on the horizon of my heart.
They guided me all the day long to the mysteries of the country of pleasure and pain, and, at last, to what palace gate have the brought me in the evening at the end of my journey? — Rabindranath Tagore

We do not want nowadays temples of worship and outward rites and ceremonies. What we really want is an Asram. We want a place where the beauty of nature and the noblest pursuits of man are in a sweet harmony. — Rabindranath Tagore

A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame. The teacher who has come to the end of his subject, who has no living traffic with his knowledge but merely repeats his lesson to his students, can only load their minds, he cannot quicken them ... — Rabindranath Tagore

Yet what each one does is by no means of little moment. The grass has to put forth all its energy to draw sustenance from the uttermost tips of its rootlets simply to grow where it is as grass; it does not vainly strive to become a banyan tree; and so the earth gains a lovely carpet of green. — Rabindranath Tagore

Beautiful is thy wristlet, decked with stars and cunningly wrought in myriad-coloured jewels. But more beautiful to me thy sword with its curve of lightning like the outspread wings of the divine bird of Vishnu, perfectly poised in the angry red light of the sunset.
It quivers like the one last response of life in ecstasy of pain at the final stroke of death; it shines like the pure flame of being burning up earthly sense with one fierce flash.
Beautiful is thy wristlet, decked with starry gems; but thy sword, O lord of thunder, is wrought with uttermost beauty, terrible to behold or think of. — Rabindranath Tagore

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

True deliverance of man is the deliverance from Avidya i.e. ignorance. It is not in destroying anything that is positive and real, for that cannot be possible, but that which is negative, which obstructs our vision of truth. — Rabindranath Tagore

The world has kissed my Soul with its pain, asking for its return in Songs. — Rabindranath Tagore

If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it.
I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil
and its head bent low with patience.
The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish,
and thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky.
Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds' nests,
and thy melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves. — Rabindranath Tagore

Bees sip honey from flowers and hum their thanks when they leave. The gaudy butterfly is sure that the flowers owe thanks to him. — Rabindranath Tagore

All that is not given is lost. — Rabindranath Tagore

They throw their shadows before them who carry their lantern on their back. — Rabindranath Tagore

Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live. — Rabindranath Tagore

You are dark, even as the flints are. You must come to violent conflicts and make a noise in order to produce your sparks. But their disconnected flashes merely assist your pride, and not your clear vision. — Rabindranath Tagore

We have seen that in order to be powerful we have to submit to the laws of the universal forces, and to realise in practice that they are our own. So, in order to be happy, we have to submit our individual will to the sovereignty of the universal will, and to feel in truth that it is our own will. When we reach that state wherein the adjustment of the finite in us to the infinite is made perfect, then pain itself becomes a valuable asset. — Rabindranath Tagore

There is no day nor night, nor form nor colour, and never, never a word. (#67) — Rabindranath Tagore

Where are those tears in your eyes, my child?
How horrid of them to be always scolding you for nothing!
You have stained your fingers and face with ink while writing-
is that why they call you dirty?
O, fie! Would they dare to call the full moon dirty because
it has smudged its face with ink?
For every little trifle they blame you, my child. They are
ready to find fault for nothing.
You tore your clothes while playing-is that why they call you
untidy?
O, fie! What would they call an autumn morning that smiles
through its ragged clouds?
Take no heed of what they say to you, my child.
They make a long list of your misdeeds.
Everybody knows how you love sweet things-is that why they
call you greedy?
O, fie! What then would they call us who love you? — Rabindranath Tagore

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil. — Rabindranath Tagore

Spurious fame spreads from tongue to tongue like the fog of the early dawn before the sun rises. — Rabindranath Tagore

The fundamental desire of life is the desire to exist. — Rabindranath Tagore

The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end. — Rabindranath Tagore

Free me as free is the forest fire, as is the thunder that laughs aloud and hurls defiance to darkness. — Rabindranath Tagore

The cure for all the illness of life is stored in the inner depth of life itself, the access to which becomes possible when we are alone. This solitude is a world in itself, full of wonders and resources unthought of. It is absurdly near; yet so unapproachably distant. — Rabindranath Tagore

In death the many become one; in life the one become many. — Rabindranath Tagore

Let this be my last word, that I trust in thy love. — Rabindranath Tagore

The greatest distance in this World is not that between living and death, it is when I am just before you, and you don't know that I Love You. — Rabindranath Tagore

We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility. — Rabindranath Tagore

Great suffering brings with it the power of great endurance. When sorrow is deepest all the forces of patience and courage are banded together to do their duty. So while we are cowards before petty troubles, great sorrows make us brave by rousing our truer manhood. — Rabindranath Tagore

What seems to be coming at you is really coming from you — Rabindranath Tagore

In pleasure and in pain I stand not by the side of men, and thus stand by thee. I shrink to give up my life, and thus do not plunge into the great waters of life. — Rabindranath Tagore

April, like a child,
Writes hieroglyphs on dust with flowers,
Wipes them away and forgets. — Rabindranath Tagore

At last, when no one else came, Mother Sleep soothed with her soft caresses the wounded heart of the motherless lad. — Rabindranath Tagore

God, the Great Giver, can open the whole universe to our gaze in the narrow space of a single land. — Rabindranath Tagore

The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence. — Rabindranath Tagore

For here rolls the sea, and even here lies the other shore waiting to be reached - yes, here is this everlasting present, not distant, not anywhere else. — Rabindranath Tagore

Discipline divorced from wisdom is not true discipline, but merely the meaningless following of custom, which is only a disguise for stupidity. — Rabindranath Tagore

Have you not heard his silent steps? He comes, comes, ever comes.

Every moment and every age, every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes.

Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind, but all their notes have always proclaimed, 'He comes, comes, ever comes.'

In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path he comes, comes, ever comes.

In the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering chariot of clouds he comes, comes, ever comes.

In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart, and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine. — Rabindranath Tagore

Even he whose near ones have all died, one by one, is not alone-companionship comes for him from behind the screen of death. — Rabindranath Tagore

Who are you, a hundred years from today, reading my poetry with curiosity? — Rabindranath Tagore

It sometimes strikes me how immensely fortunate I am that each day should take its place in my life, either reddened with the rising and setting sun, or refreshingly cool with deep, dark clouds, or blooming like a white flower in the moonlight. What untold wealth! — Rabindranath Tagore

The Child Angel
Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my child,
unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence.
They are cruel in their greed and their envy,
their words are like hidden knives thirsting for blood.
Go and stand amidst their scowling hearts, my child,
and let your gentle eyes fall upon them like the
forgiving peace of the evening over the strife of the day.
Let them see your face, my child, and thus know the
meaning of all things, let them love you and love each other.
Come and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless, my child.
At sunrise open and raise your heart like a blossoming flower,
and at sunset bend your head and in silence
complete the worship of the day. — Rabindranath Tagore

Brahma was excessively sparing with earth, water, and fire ... The reckless expenditure of air and ether in his composition was amazing. And, in consequence, he perpetually struggled to outreach the wind, to outrun space itself. Other animals ran only when they had a reason, but the Horse would run for no reason whatever, as if to run out of his own skin. — Rabindranath Tagore

truth and falsehood mingle in life - and to what God builds, man adds his own decoration. — Rabindranath Tagore

The child ever dwells in the mystery of ageless time,unobscured by the dust of history. — Rabindranath Tagore

As a flower plucked from a tree gradually droops and shrivels, love that avoids the harsh realities of practical life cannot thrive on its own resources. — Rabindranath Tagore