Rabindranath Tagore Quotations | Page 4

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

‎This I know... That often when I sang, and drummed, and danced, I found my eternity.

A thorn can only be extracted if you know where it is.

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

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

Grant me 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.

Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin... Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that all the great glories of man are mine.

What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.

My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.

Truth comes as conqueror only to those who have lost the art of receiving it as friend.

Truth looks tawdry when she is overdressed.

Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day and night; it is not of the earth. But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and space, and it strives evermore to be born in the fruitful dust. Heaven is fulfilled in your sweet body, my child, in your palpitating heart. The sea is beating its drums in joy, the flowers are a-tiptoe to kiss you. For heaven is born in you, in the arms of the mother- dust.

Power said to the world, "You are mine." The world kept it prisoner on her throne. Love said to the world, "I am thine." The world gave it the freedom of her house.

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.

Perhaps the new dawn will come from this horizon, from the East where the sun rises; and then, unvanquished Man will retrace his path of conquest, despite all barriers, to win back his lost heritage.

Oh my only friend, my best beloved, the gates are open in my house—do not pass by like a dream.

I have on my table a violin string. It is free to move in any direction I like. If I twist one end, it responds; it is free. But it is not free to sing. So I take it and fix it into my violin. I bind it and when it is bound, it is free for the first time to sing.

Life is perpetually creative because it contains in itself that surplus which ever overflows the boundaries of the immediate time and space, restlessly pursuing its adventure of expression in the varied forms of self-realization.

And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act.

O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.

The mountain remains unmoved at seeming defeat by the mist.

when you came you cried and everybody smiled with joy; when you go smile and let the world cry for you.

Now it is time to sit quiet, face to face with thee, and to sing dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.

Those who are near me do not know that you are nearer to me than they are Those who speak to me do not know that my heart is full with your unspoken words Those who crowd in my path do not know that I am walking alone with you Those who love me do not know that their love brings you to my heart

Life finds its wealth by the claims of the world, and its worth by the claims of love.

Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty that can modulate their isolation into a harmony with the whole.

[The poets' role is that of] capturing on their instruments the secret stir of life in the air and giving it voice in the music of prophecy

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

Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict.

Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.

Age considers; youth ventures.

Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.

The young student sits with his head bent over his books, and his mind straying in youth's dreamland; where prose is prowling on the desk and poetry hiding in the heart.

Music fills the infinite between two souls. This has been muffled by the mist of our daily habits.

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.

When we accept any discipline for ourselves, we try to avoid everything except that which is necessary for our purpose; it is this purposefulness, which belongs to the adult mind, that we force upon school children. We say, "Never keep your mind aler.

It is the same life that emerges in joy through the dust of the earth into numberless waves of flower.

Our scientific world is our world of reasoning. It has its greatness and uses and attractions. We are ready to pay homage due to it. But when it claims to have discovered the real world for us and laughs at the worlds of all simple-minded men, then we must say it is like a general grown intoxicated with his power, usurping the throne of his king

Religion, like poetry, is not a mere idea, it is expression. The self-expression of God is in the endless variety of creation; and our attitude toward the Infinite Being must also in its expression have a variety of individuality ceaseless and unendi.

The music of the far-away summer flutters around the Autumn seeking its former nest.

When you have once taken up a responsibility, you must see it through.

The speech of my heart will be carried on in murmurings of a song.

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

He only has freedom who ideally loves freedom himself and is glad to extend it to others. He who cares to have slaves must chain himself to them. He who builds walls to create exclusion for others builds walls across his own freedom. He who distrusts freedom in others loses his moral right to it.

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.

The soil in return for her service keeps the tree tied to her, the sky asks nothing and leaves it free.

It dances today, my heart, like a peacock it dances, it dances. It sports a mosaic of passions like a peacock’s tail, It soars to the sky with delight, it quests, Oh wildly, it dances today, my heart, like a peacock it dances.

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

Life's aspirations come in the guise of children.

Plunge into the deep without fear, with the gladness of April in your heart.

The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.

Boasting is only a masked shame; it does not truly believe in itself.

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

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.

There is no "next" after you are dead and gone from your own world.

Man is worse than an animal when he is an animal.

With begging and scrambling we find very little, but with being true to ourselves we find a great deal more.

Whenever our life is stirred by truth, it expresses energy and comes to be filled, as it were, with a creative ardor. This consciousness of the creative urge is evidence of the force of truth on our mind.

Religion is not a fractional thing that can be doled out in fixed weekly or daily measures as one among various subjects in the school syllabus. It is the truth of our complete being, the consciousness of our personal relationship with the infinite.

To the guests that must go, bid God's speed and brush away all traces of their steps.

Those who in this world have the courage to try and solve in their own lives new problems of life, are the ones who raise society to greatness.

I have long been an ardent believer in the science of Homeopathy and I feel happy that it has got now a greater hold in India than even in the land of its origin. It is not merely a collection of a few medicines but a real science with a rational philosophy at its base. We require more scientific interest and inquiry into the matter with special stress upon the Indian environment

The realization of our soul has its moral and its spiritual side. The moral side represents training of unselfishness, control of desire; the spiritual side represents sympathy and love. They should be taken together and never separated. The cultivation of the merely moral side of our nature leads us to the dark region of narrowness and hardness of heart, to the intolerant arrogance of goodness; and the cultivation of the merely spiritual side of our nature leads us to a still darker region of revelry in intemperance of imagination.

It's far better to make people angry than to make them ashamed.

I am ashamed of my emptiness," said the Word to the Work. "I know how poor I am when I see you," said the Work to the Word.

Truth reveals itself in beauty.

The bird thinks it a favor to give the fish a lift in the air

The delights of sight and hearing and touch will bear thy delight.

Repentance is a gift of God's grace.

Man's freedom is never in being saved from troubles, but it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the trouble an element in his joy.

Pessimism is a form of mental dipsomania; it disdains healthy nourishment, indulges in the strong drink of denunciation, and creates an artificial dejection which thirsts for a stronger draught.

I ask my destiny - what power is this That cruelly drives me onward without rest? My destiny says, "Look round!" I turn back and see It is I myself that is ever pushing me from behind.

Man is a rough-hewn and woman a finished product.

Those who draw their sustenance from science are blessed. It is for me to only derive an occasional pleasure. This is nothing worthy of conceit, but I am indeed touched by the joys. This book is an ode to such joys, a digest of my collections from various sources.

Our self (Soul) is maya (an illusion) where it is merely individual and finite, where it considers its separateness as absolute; it is satyam (truth) where it recognizes its essence in the universal and infinite, in the Supreme Self, in paramatman (God). This is what Christ means when he says, "Before Abraham was, I am" (i.e. before Abraham was God, who is the same that is in my soul - I am That.)

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

Days come and ages pass, and it is ever he who moves my heart in many a name, in many a guise, in many a rapture of joy and of sorrow. Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.

In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the other the impersonal. At one you have the positive assertion - Here I am; at the other the equally strong denial - I am not. Without this ego what is love? And again, with only this ego how can love be possible? Bondage and liberation are not antagonistic in love. For love is most free and at the same time most bound. If God were absolutely free there would be no creation. The infinite being has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude. And in him who is love the finite and the infinite are made one.

If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart, thy love for me still waits for my love.

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.

We sit inert, like dead specimens of some museum, while lessons are pelted at us from on high, like hailstones on flowers.

Dreams can never be made captive.

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.

Life, like a child, laughs, shaking its rattle of death as it runs.

For the current of our spiritual life creeds, rituals and channels that may thwart or help, according to their fixity or openness. When a symbol or spiritual idea becomes rigidly elaborate in its construction, it supplants the idea which it should support.

Let only that little be left of me whereby I may name thee my all. Let only that little be left of my will whereby I may feel thee on every side, and come to thee in everything, and offer to thee my love every moment. Let only that little be left of me whereby I may never hide thee. Let only that little of my fetters be left whereby I am bound with thy will, and thy purpose is carried out in my life--and that is the fetter of thy love.

When I think of ages past That have floated down the stream Of life and love and death, I feel how free it makes us To pass away.

When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.

to tyrannize for the country is to tyrannize over the country

In desperate hope I go and search for her in all the corners of my house. I find her not. My house is small and what once has gone from it can never be regained. But infinite is thy mansion, my lord, and seeking her I have come to thy door.

When he has the power to see things detached from self-interest and from the insistent claims of the lust of the senses, then alone can he have the true vision of the beauty that is everywhere.

If you allow your mind to carp at all and sundry, it will turn against itself: the majority of our sorrows are self-inflicted.

God seeks comrades and claims love, The devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

Death belongs to life as birth does The walk is in the raising of the foot as in the laying of it down

The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.

By touching you may kill, by keeping away you may possess.

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

The pious sectarian is proud because he is confident of his right of possession in God. The man of devotion is meek because he is conscious of God's right of love over his life and soul.

I am hidden in your heart, O Flower.

By unrighteousness man prospers, gains what appears desirable, conquer enemies, but perishes a the root.