These wise Rabindranath Tagore quotes and poems on life, humanity, and education will enlighten you.
Rabindranath Tagore was born on 7 May 1861 with the name Robindronath Thakur was a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter. In 1913, Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he reshaped Bengali music and literature.
This great author of Gitanjali, Tagore was born in a Bengali family in Calcutta. Tagore started writing poetry at the age of 8. He released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha at the age of 16. By 1877, he started publishing his work under his real name. Some of his famous published books are Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World).
A few of Tagore‘s compositions were chosen to use as national anthems by two nations as India’s “Jana Gana Mana” and Bangladesh’s “Amar Shonar Bangla”. Also, the Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Here we are sharing a collection of Rabindranath Tagore quotes and poems for you to read and get inspired.
Rabindranath Tagore Quotes
“It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age forever.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of
Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, more or less accurately reflecting the world outside them, not realizing on the contrary that the mind is itself the principal element of creation.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
Rabindranath Tagore Quotes On Life
“The small wisdom is like water in a glass:
clear, transparent, pure.
The great wisdom is like the water in the sea:
dark, mysterious, impenetrable.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Death belongs to life as birth does
The walk is in the raising of the
foot as in the laying of it down”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“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”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“YOU are the big drop of dew under the lotus leaf,
I am the smaller one on its upper side,’
said the dewdrop to the lake.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“We cross infinity with every step;
we meet eternity in every second.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“And because I love this life
I know I shall love death as well.
The child cries out when
From the right breast the mother
Takes it away, in the very next moment
To Find in the left one
Its consolation.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action –
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
“Love adorns itself;
it seeks to prove inward joy by outward beauty.
Love does not claim possession
but gives freedom.
Love is an endless mystery,
for it has nothing else to explain it.
Love’s gift cannot be given,
it waits to be accepted.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener
Rabindranath Tagore Quotes On Humanity
“When I go from hence, let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable.
I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus I am blessed—let this be my parting word.
In this playhouse of infinite forms, I have had my play and here have I caught sight of him who is formless.
My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let it come—let this be my parting word.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
“Those who wish to sit, shut their eyes,
and meditate to know if the world’s true or lies,
may do so. It’s their choice. But I meanwhile
with hungry eyes that can’t be satisfied
shall take a look at the world in broad daylight.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The song I came to sing
remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days 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 . . .”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The roots below the earth claim no rewards for making the branches fruitful.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream, precedes the goal.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Love’s gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Depth of friendship does not depend on the length of acquaintance”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man’s hands. ”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
Rabindranath Tagore Poems English
“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“I am willing to serve my country, but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World
“He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“What seems to be coming at you is really coming from you”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“I have on my table a violin string. It is free to move in any direction I like. If I twist one end, it responds; it is free.
But it is not free to sing. So I take it and fix it into my violin. I bind it and when it is bound, it is free for the first time to sing.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Read books when you are free, read minds when you aren’t….but do read…”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“Dreams can never be made captive.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener
“If someone smells a flower and says he does not understand, the reply to him is: there is nothing to understand, it is only a scent. If he persists, saying: that I know, but what does it all mean? Then one has either to change the subject or make it more abstruse by saying that the scent is the shape which the universal joy takes in the flower.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, My Reminiscences
Rabindranath Tagore Quotes On Love
“I understand the voice of your stars and the silence of your trees.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“And because I love this life, I know I shall love death as well.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
“Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield, But to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved, But for the patience to win my freedom.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin… Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that all the great glories of man are mine. ”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Men can only think. Women have a way of understanding without thinking. A woman was created out of God’s own fancy. Man, He had to hammer into shape.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World
“that which is eternal within the moment only becomes shallow if spread out in time.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World
“Let him only see the thorns who has eyes to see the rose.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“I will sit in the pupil of your eyes and that will carry your sight into the heart of the things”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Nirvana is not the blowing out of the candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because the day has come. ”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Inspiration follows aspiration.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore Quotes In English
“Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for she was born in another time.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The world loved man when he smiled. The world became afraid of him when he laughed.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“Facts are many, but the truth is one.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“In Art, a man reveals himself and not his objects.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“If I can’t make it through one door, I’ll go through another door- or I’ll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore Quotes On Education
“Music fills the infinite between two souls”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The biggest changes in a women’s nature are brought by love; in man, by ambition”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“I have spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument
while the song I came to sing remains unsung.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Great calm, generous detachment, selfless love, the 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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“If one had to fill in, little by little, the gap between day and night, it would take an eternity to do it. But the sun rises and the darkness is dispelled- a moment is sufficient to overcome an infinite distance.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World
“The greed for fruit misses the flower.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Not hammer-strokes, but the dance of the water sings the pebbles into perfection.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“My dearest life, I know you are not mine forever; but do love me even if it’s for this moment. After that I shall vanish into the forest where you cast me, I won’t ask anyone for anything again. Give me something that can last me till I die.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Chokher Bali
“Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“We live in the world when we love it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore Quotes On Nationalism
“Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies
“Beauty is simply reality seen with the eyes of love”
― Rabindranath Tagore Quotes
“When you came you cried and everybody smiled with joy; when you go smile and let the world cry for you.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“Men are cruel, but Man is kind. ”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“From my heart comes out and dances the image of my own desire. The gleaming vision flits on. I try to clasp it firmly, it eludes me and leads me astray. I seek what I cannot get, I get what I do not seek.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener
“When I go from hence, let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
Rabindranath Tagore Famous Quotes
“There is no day nor night, nor form nor color, and never, never a word.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
“Perhaps the new dawn will come from this horizon, from the East where the sun rises; and then, unvanquished Man will retrace his path of conquest, despite all barriers, to win back his lost heritage. ”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“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 a world whose guiding spirit is personal love.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The real frienship is like fluorescence, it shines better when everything has darkened.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The little flower lies in the dust. It sought the path of the butterfly.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Pleasure is frail like a dewdrop, while it laughs it dies. But
sorrow is strong and abiding. Let sorrowful love wake in your
eyes.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener
“Truth in her dress finds facts too tight. In fiction, she moves with ease.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“He alone may chastise who loves.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore Best Quotes
“The speech of my heart will be carried on in murmurings of a song.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
“When you have finished with others, that is my time.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener
“he who has the knowledge has the responsibility to impart it to the students.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
“Purity, they imagined, was only becoming in those on whom fortune had not smiled. It is the moon which has room or stains, not the stars.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World
“What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
“Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“The Stronger is the imagination the less imaginary it is”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Woman knows the man well enough where he is weak, but she is quite unable to fathom him where he is strong. The fact is that man is as much a mystery to the woman as a woman is to a man. If that were not so, the separation of the sexes would only have been a waste of Nature’s energy.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World
“Ask me no questions, and I will tell you no lies.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Hungry Stones and Other Stories
“I slept and dreamt that life was a joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Love is an endless mystery because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
Did these Rabindranath Tagore Quotes inspired you?
Did you know that Rabindranath Tagore was the youngest of 13 surviving children? Tagore‘s nickname was Rabi and he was mostly raised by his servants as his mother died in his early childhood and his father traveled widely. He always loathed formal education. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity.
Tagore‘s novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays cover both political and personal topics. We hope these unforgettable Rabindranath Tagore quotes and poems will inspire you and make you learn a few things.
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