Rabindranath Tagore Quotes

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

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room. The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. 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.

Night's darkness is a bag that bursts with the gold of the dawn.

Whether joy or sorrow, pain or pleasure; whatsoever may befall thee, accept it serenely with an unvanquished heart.

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

The night kissed the fading day With a whisper: "I am death, your mother, From me you will get new birth."

For many years, at great cost, I traveled through many countries, saw the high mountains, the oceans. The only things I did not see were the sparkling dewdrops in the grass just outside my door.

Music is the purest form of art... therefore true poets...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.

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

To be constantly changing one's plans isn't decision at all-it's indecision.

Merely to exist is not enough.

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

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free.

Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live.

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'.

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 is given to us, we earn it by giving it.

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

Today I feel that I shall win through. I have come to the gateway of the simple; I am now content to see things as they are. I have gained freedom myself; I shall allow freedom to others. In my work will be my salvation.

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 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.

Those who think to reach God by running away from the world, when and where do they expect to meet him? We are reaching him here in this very spot, now at this very moment.

Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. In effect, the people who change our lives the most begin to sing to us while we are still in darkness. If we listen to their song, we will see the dawning of a new part of ourselves.

Truth looks tawdry when she is overdressed.

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

The mountain remains unmoved at its seeming defeat by the mist.

If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.

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

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

The first flower that blossomed on this earth was an invitation to an unborn song.

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.

You have given me Your love, filling the world with Your gifts.

False hope is clung to with all one's might and main, till a day comes when it has sucked the heart dry and it forcibly breaks through its bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of awakening, and then once again the longing to get back into the maze of the same mistakes.

The greatest distance in this World is not that between living and death, it is when I am just before you, and you don't know that I Love You.

In the mountain, stillness surges up to explore its own height In the lake, movement stands still to contemplate its own depth.

When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy. When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song. When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest. When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner, break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king. When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder.

Yet what each one does is by no means of little moment. The grass has to put forth all its energy to draw sustenance from the uttermost tips of its rootlets simply to grow where it is as grass; it does not vainly strive to become a banyan tree; and so the earth gains a lovely carpet of green.

Everything has sprung from immortal life and is vibrating with life, for life is immense!

We are like newborn children, Our power is the power to grow.

Give Me Strength 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.

Power takes as ingratitude the writhing of its victims

Memory, the priestess, kills the present and offers its heart to the shrine of the dead past.

The thing which seems so glorious when viewed from the heights of the country's cause looks so muddy when seen from the bottom. One begins by getting angry and then feels disgusted.

A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame. The teacher who has come to the end of his subject, who has no living traffic with his knowledge but merely repeats his lesson to his students, can only load their minds, he cannot quicken them.

Art awakens a sense of real by establishing an intimate relationship between our inner being and the universe at large, bringing us a consciousness of deep joy.

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

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.

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