Rabindranath Tagore Quotes (180 Quotes)


    I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.

    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.

    Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them.

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

    The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.


    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 progress of our soul is like a perfect poem. It has an infinite idea which once realized makes all movements full of meaning and joy. But if we detach its movements from that ultimate idea, if we do not see the infinite rest and only see the infi

    Children are living beings - more living than grown-up people who have built shells of habit around themselves. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for their mental health and development that they should not have mere schools for their lessons, but


    The touch of an infinite mystery passes over the trivial and the familiar, making it break out into ineffable music... The trees, the stars, and the blue hills ache with a meaning which can never be uttered in words.

    A dewdrop is a perfect integrity that has no filial memory of its parentage.

    The meaning of our self is not to be found in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless realization of yoga, of union.

    If I say that He is within me, the universe is ashamed if I say that He is without me, it is falsehood.

    Faith is like a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.

    Beauty is truth's smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.

    Those institutions which are static in their nature raise walls of division this is why, in the history of religions, priesthood has always maintained dissensions and hindered the freedom of man. But the principle of life unites, it deals with the v

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

    There is a moral law in this world which has its application both to individuals and organized bodies of men. You cannot go on violating these laws in the name of your nation, yet enjoy their advantage as individuals. We may forget truth for our conv



    Obstacles are necessary companions to expression, and we know that the positive element in language is not in its obstructiveness. Exclusively viewed from the side of the obstacle, nature appears inimical to the idea of morality. But if that were abs

    To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.

    The emancipation of our physical nature is in attaining health, of our social being in attaining goodness, and of our self in attaining love.

    The revilement of the infinite in the finite, which is the motive of all creation, is not seen in its perfection in the starry heavens, in the beauty of the flowers. It is in the soul of man.


    Music is the purest form of art... therefore true poets, they who are seers, seek to express the universe in terms of music... The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his very life. They are not materials gathered from outside.

    Those who have everything but thee, my God, laugh at those who have nothing but thyself.

    Taking shelter in the dead is death itself, and only taking all the risk of life to the fullest extent is living.

    Want of love is a degree of callousness for love is the perfection of consciousness. We do not love because we do not comprehend, or rather we do not comprehend because we do not love. For love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is

    Some have thought deeply and explored the meaning of thy truth, and they are great I have listened to catch the music of thy play, and I am glad

    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. Then only can he see that what is unpleasant to us is no.


    Science urges us to occupy by our mind the immensity of the knowable world our spiritual teacher enjoins us to comprehend by our soul the infinite spirit which is in the depth of the moving and changing facts of the world the urging of our artistic

    We could have no communication whatever with our surroundings if they were absolutely foreign to us. Man is reaping success every day, and that shows there is a rational connection between him and nature, for we never can make anything our own except


    Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.


    Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden upon our minds to be got rid of at any cost or they are useful, and therefore in temporary and partial relation to us, becoming burdensome when their utility is lost or they are like wandering vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our recognition, and then passing on. A thing is only completely our own when it is a thing of joy to us.

    What is Art? It is the response of man's creative soul to the call of the Real.


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



    Gross utility kills beauty. We now have all over the world huge production of things, huge organizations, huge administrations of empire - all obstructing the path of life. Civilization is waiting for a great consummation, for an expression of its so.

    It is our desires that limit the scope of our self-realization, hinder our extension of consciousness, and give rise to sin, which is the innermost barrier that keeps us apart from our God, setting up disunion and arrogance of exclusiveness. For sin

    God seeks comrades and claims love, the Devil seeksslaves and claims obedience.

    The picture of a flower in a botanical book is information its mission ends with our knowledge. But in pure art it is a personal communication. And therefore until it finds its harmony in the depth of our personality it misses the mark. We can treat

    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.

    The most important lesson that man can learn from his life is not that there is pain in this world, but that it depends upon him to turn it into good account, that it is possible for him to transmute it into joy... Man's freedom is never in being sav


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