Quotes from Rabindranath Tagore

We cross infinity with every step; we meet eternity in every second.

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

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.

Once we dreamt that we were strangers. We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.

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

The song I came to sing remains unsung to this day. I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument. The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart . . .

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.

Age considers; youth ventures.

Only Thee That I want thee, only thee---let my heart repeat without end. All desires that distract me, day and night, are false and empty to the core. As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light, even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry ---`I want thee, only thee'. As the storm still seeks its end in peace when it strikes against peace with all its might, even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love and still its cry is ---`I want thee, only thee'.

Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance

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

Poems On Time The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth. Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.

God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man's hands.

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.

Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict.

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.

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

My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening.

Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.

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

In Art, man reveals himself and not his objects.

Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water, sings the pebbles into perfection.

My heart, the bird of the wilderness, has found its sky in your eyes. They are the cradle of the morning, they are the kingdom of the stars. My songs are lost in their depths. Let me but soar in that sky, in its lonely immensity. Let me but cleave its clouds and spread wings in its sunshine.

Great calm, generous detachment, selfless love, disinterested effort: these are what make for success in life. If you can find peace in yourself and can spread comfort around you, you will be happier than an empress.