Rabindranath Tagore Quotes

“I am ashamed of my emptiness," said the Word to the Work. "I know how poor I am when I see you," said the Work to the Word.”

“I thought that my invincible power would hold the world captive, leaving me in a freedom undisturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and cruel hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete and unbreakable, I found that it held me in its grip.”

“And because I love this lifeI know I shall love death as wellThe child cries out whenFrom the right breast the motherTakes it away, in the very next momentTo find in the left oneIts consolation.”

“Boasting is only a masked shame; it does not truly believe in itself.”

“If you allow your mind to carp at all and sundry, it will turn against itself: the majority of our sorrows are self-inflicted.”

“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.”

“Someone spilled the ink on the canvas. Now boasts: "I painted the night".”

“Let it not be death but completeness. Let love melt into memory and pain into songs. Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest. Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night. Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence. I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.”

“Life's aspirations come in the guise of children.”

“What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.”

“Do not blame the food because you have no appetite.”

“The speech of my heart will be carried on in murmurings of a song.”

“Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it.”

“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.”

“Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.”

“Asks the Possible of the Impossible, "Where is your dwelling-place?" "In the dreams of the Impotent," comes the answer.”

“Man is a rough-hewn and woman a finished product.”

“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.”

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

“The Taj Mahal rises above the banks of the river like a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time.”

“The most important lesson that man can learn from life, is not that there is pain in this world, but that it is possible for him to transmute it into joy.”

“Where roads are made I lose my way.In the wide water, in the blue sky there is no line of a track.The pathway is hidden by the birds' wings, by the star-fires, by the flowers of the wayfaring seasons.And I ask my heart if its blood carries the wisdom of the unseen way.”

“Let the splendor of diamond, pearl and ruby vanish? Only let this one teardrop, this Taj Mahal, glisten spotlessly bright on the cheek of time, forever and ever.”

“that which is eternal within the moment only becomes shallow if spread out in time.”

“Other animals ran only when they had a reason, but the horse would run for no reason whatever, as if to run out of his own skin”