Quotes from Rabindranath Tagore

That I exist is a perpetual surprise

I longed to find Bimala blossoming fully in all her truth and power. But the thing I forgot to calculate was, that one must give up all claims based on conventional rights, if one would find a person freely revealed in truth.

The man, whose acquaintance with the world does not lead him deeper than science leads him, will never understand what it is that the man with the spiritual vision finds in these natural phenomena. The water does not merely cleanse his limbs, but it purifies his heart; for it touches his soul. The earth does not merely hold his body, but it gladdens his mind; for its contact is more than a physical contact - it is a living presence.

Mother, the tutor has come, and I have such a bad headache; couldn't I have no lessons to-day?" I hope no child of immature age will be allowed to read this story, and I sincerely trust it will not be used in text-books or primers for junior classes. For what I did was dreadfully bad, and I received no punishment whatever. On the contrary, my wickedness was crowned with success.

The earth, water and light, fruits and flowers, to her were not merely physical phenomena to be turned to use and then left aside. They were necessary to her in the attainment of her ideal of perfection, as every note is necessary to the completeness of the symphony.

In fact, man has been able to make his pursuit of power easier to-day by his art of mitigating the obstructive forces that came from the higher region of his humanity.

The infinite is with us in the beauty of our childhood, in the strength of our youth, in the wisdom of our age; in play, in earning, and in spending.

El destino del hombre es equivocarse, afanarse inútilmente y sufrir, pero lo que no puede es quedar estancado; sacrifica su vida en aras de lo que considera su deber.

Pluck this little flower and take it. Delay not! I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust. It 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.

Your voice, my friend, wanders in my heart, like the muffled sound of the sea among these listening pines.

Leemos mal el mundo, y decimos luego que nos engaña.

WE, the rustling leaves, have a voice that answers the storms, but who are you so silent?" "I am a mere flower.

It is the continual and stupendous dead pressure of this inhuman upon the living human under which the modern world is groaning. Not merely the subject races, but you who live under the delusion that you are free, are every day sacrificing your freedom and humanity to this fetich of nationalism, living in the dense poisonous atmosphere of world-wide suspicion and greed and panic.

This longing is for the one who is felt in the dark, but not seen in the day.

When we were young, we understood all sweet things; and we could detect the sweets of a fairy story by an unerring science of our own. We never cared for such useless things as knowledge. We only cared for truth. And our unsophisticated little hearts knew well where the Crystal Palace of Truth lay and how to reach it. But to-day we are expected to write pages of facts, while the truth is simply this: "There was a king.

Now I wish to lay my all before his feet, and gain the right to my place in his kingdom.

In the impenetrable night, All the sorrows of the world, All its sins and evils, Its tears and cruelties, Have risen in tumult, overflowing their banks And blaspheming the skies. Yet, O fearless, O sorrow-stricken one, With the groanings of the earth resounding in your ears, Accept the mad evil days with fortitude, And with hope undimmed in your soul, Hold on for the new shore. - Poem 37

hidden in my eyes; I will thread your image like a gem on my joy and hang it on my bosom.

Un día hallaré la Vida en mi interior, el gozo que se esconde en mi vida, aunque los días confunden mi camino con el polvo de la ociosidad. He conocido sus fugaces resplandores y me han llegado rachas de su aliento que han puesto fragantes mis ideas por un instante. Un día encontraré fuera de mí ese gozo que me oculta la pantalla de la luz; y me alzaré en esa soledad desbordada donde todo se observa como lo ve el creador.

If my heart is breaking – let it break! That will not make the world bankrupt – nor even me; for man is so much greater than what he loses in this life.

There, display and extravagance, in dress, in furniture, in costly entertainments, are startling. They seem to push you back into a corner, like a poor intruder at a feast; they are apt to make you envious, or take your breath away with amazement.

No civilized society can thrive upon victims whose humanity has been permanently mutilated

But in India, our difficulties being internal, our history has been the history of continual social adjustment and not that of organized power for defence and aggression.

And I should have assumed that this father of Swann's had been a monster if my grandfather, whom I regarded as a better judge than myself, and whose word was my law and often led me in the long run to pardon offences which I should have been inclined to condemn, had not gone on to exclaim, "But, after all, he had a heart of gold.