Quotes from Rabindranath Tagore

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

My life when young was like a flower—a flower that loosens a petal or two from her abundance and never feels the loss when the spring breeze comes to beg at her door. Now at the end of youth my life is like a fruit, having nothing to spare, and waiting to offer herself completely with her full burden of sweetness.

When man was being made, the Creator was a schoolmaster— His bag full of commandments and principles; but when He came to woman, He resigned His headmastership and turned artist, with only His brush and paint-box.

Outwardly nature is busy and restless, inwardly she is all silence and peace. She has toil on one side and leisure on the other. You see her bondage only when you see her from without, but within her heart is a limitless beauty.

Let thy love play upon my voice and rest on my silence. Let it pass through my heart into all my movements. Let thy love like stars shine in the darkness of my sleep and dawn in my awakening. Let it burn in the flame of my desires And flow in all currents of my own love. Let me carry thy love in my life as a harp does its music, and give it back to thee at last with my life.

The greatest changes in a woman's nature are wrought by love; in a man's, by ambition.

I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart. And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act.

The hidden clash of a silent conflict like this is far harder to bear than an open quarrel.

To try to keep Bimala as a garland round my neck, would have meant keeping a weight hanging over my heart. Have I not been praying with all my strength, that if happiness may not be mine, let it go; if grief needs must be my lot, let it come; but let me knot be kept in bondage. To clutch hold of that which is untrue as though it were true, is only to throttle oneself. May I be saved from such self-destruction.

When it was day they came into my house and said, `We shall only take the smallest room here.' They said, `We shall help you in the worship of your God and humbly accept only our own share in his grace'; and then they took their seat in a corner and they sat quiet and meek. But in the darkness of night I find they break into my sacred shrine, strong and turbulent, and snatch with unholy greed the offerings from God's altar.

When a man does not realise his kinship with the world, he lives in a prison-house whose walls are alien to him.

The very psychology of men and women about their mutual relation is changing and becoming the psychology of the primitive fighting elements, rather than of humanity seeking its completeness through the union based upon mutual self-surrender.

Every now and then, their mutual passion would show signs of fading; without the firm support of the world of everyday duty, it was difficult to keep up this fervour. Unless love is rooted in purposeful activity, its delights are neither fulfilling nor lasting.

Mashi, happiness is like those stars. They don't cover all the darkness; there are gaps between. We make mistakes in life and we misunderstand, and yet there remain gaps through which truth shines. I

He came and sat by my side but I woke not. What a cursed sleep it was, O miserable me! He came when the night was still; he had his harp in his hands, and my dreams became resonant with its melodies. Alas, why are my nights all thus lost? Ah, why do I ever miss his sight whose breath touches my sleep?

In the night of weariness let me give myself up to sleep without struggle, resting my trust upon thee. Let me not force my flagging spirit into a poor preparation for thy worship. It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day to renew its sight in a fresher gladness of awakening.

he feared that the flame of a prayer lamp that illuminated the home could also set the house on fire.

Adharmenaidhate tabat, tato bhadrani pashyati, tatah sapatnan jayati, - samulastu vinashyati. In unrightousness they prosper, in it they find their good, through it they defeat their enemies, - but they perish at the root.

The modern age has brought the geography of the earth near to us, but made it difficult for us to come into touch with man

When we feel for certain that we are alive, then we know for certain that we shall go on living. Those who have never put life to the test, in all possible ways, these keep on crying out: Life is fleeting, Life is waning, Life is like a dew-drop on a lotus leaf. But, isn't life inconstant? Only because its movement is unceasing. The moment you stop this movement, that moment you begin to play the drama of Death.

Unless love is rooted in purposeful activity, its delights are neither fulfilling nor lasting.

Only the trees and beasts and birds tell unmitigated truths, because these poor things have not the power to invent. In this men show their superiority to the lower creatures, and women beat even men. Neither is a profusion of ornament unbecoming for a woman, nor a profusion of untruth.

political and the commercial man, the man of the limited purpose.

I have never been able to make out," I began, "why women are so shy about being caught reading poetry. We men--lawyers, mechanics, or what not--may well feel ashamed. If we must read poetry, it should be at dead of night, within closed doors. But you women are so akin to poesy. The Creator Himself is a lyric poet, and Jayadeva must have practised the divine art seated at His feet.