Rabindranath tagore quotes

A lamp can only light another lamp when it continues to burn in its own flame.

My eyes have seen much, but they are not weary. My ears have heard much, but they thirst for more.

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

The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous.

Overstraining is the enemy of accomplishment. Calm strength that arises from a deep and inexhaustible source is what brings success.

The problem is not how to wipe out all differences, but how to unite with all differences intact.

I am able to love my God because He gives me freedom to deny Him.

If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.

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.

In death the many become one; in life the one become many.

Love's gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.

When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.

The spirit of rejection finds its support in the consciousness of separateness; the spirit of acceptance finds its base in the consciousness of unity.

The main object of teaching is not to give explanations, but to knock at the doors of the mind.

A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.

God is neither manifest nor hidden; He is neither revealed nor unrevealed; there are no words to tell that which He is. He is without form, without quality, without decay.

Say of him what you please, but I know my child's failings. I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my little child. How should you know how dear he can be when you try to weigh his merits against his faults? When I must punish him he becomes all the more a part of my being. When I cause his tears to come my heart weeps with him. I alone have a right to blame and punish, for he only may chastise who loves.

Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.

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

The best kind of wealth is to give up inordinate desires.

The biggest changes in a women's nature are brought by love; in man, by ambition

Great suffering brings with it the power of great endurance. When sorrow is deepest all the forces of patience and courage are banded together to do their duty. So while we are cowards before petty troubles, great sorrows make us brave by rousing our truer manhood.

Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.

The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.

Love is when the soul starts to sing and the flowers of your life bloom on their own.

Our responsibility is no longer to acquire, but to BE.

... let us unite, not in spite of our differences, but through them. For differences can never be wiped away, and life would be so much the poorer without them. Let all human races keep their own personalities, and yet come together, not in a uniformity that is dead, but in a unity that is living.

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.

If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out.

All that is not given is lost.

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.

Go not to the temple to put flowers upon the feet of God, first fill your own house with the fragrance of love. Go not to the temple to light candles before the altar of God, first remove the darkness of sin from your heart. Go not to the temple to bow down your head in prayer, first learn to bow in humility before your fellow men. Go not to the temple to pray on bended knees, first bend down to lift someone who is down trodden. Go not to the temple to ask for forgiveness for your sins, first forgive from your heart those who have sinned against you.

Only those of tranquil minds, and none else, can attain abiding joy, by realizing within their souls the Being who manifests one essence in a multiplicity of forms.

The false can never grow into truth by growing in power.

Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance.

The truth comes as conqueror only because we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.

Life itself is a strange mixture. We have to take it as it is, try to understand it, and then to better it.

While God waits for His temple to be built of love, men bring stones.

Love gives beauty to everything it touches.

Truth looks tawdry when she is overdressed.

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.

The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.

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.

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

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

And joy is everywhere; it is in the earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky.

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

The cure for all the illness of life is stored in the inner depth of life itself, the access to which becomes possible when we are alone. This solitude is a world in itself, full of wonders and resources unthought of. It is absurdly near; yet so unapproachably distant.

Please is frail like a dewdrop, while it laughs it dies. But sorrow is strong and abiding. Let sorrowful love wake in your eyes.

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.

Compliments win friends, honesty loses them.

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 earth paints a portrait of the sun at dawn with sunflowers in bloom. Unhappy with the portrait, she erases it and paints it again and again.

The child learns so easily because he has a natural gift, but adults, because they are tyrants, ignore natural gifts and say that children must learn through the same process that they learned by. We insist upon forced mental feeding and our lessons

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.

Dark clouds become heaven's flowers when kissed by light.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

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 it's way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit. Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action. In to that heaven of freedom, my father, LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE!

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

Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.

I have listened And I have looked With open eyes. I have poured my soul Into the world Seeking the unknown Within the known. And I sing out loud In amazement.

Beauty is simply reality seen with the eyes of love

Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.

Life finds its wealth by the claims of the world, and its worth by the claims of love.

Let not the hours pass by in the dark. Kindle the lamp of love with thy life.

Wrong is wrong only when you are at liberty to choose.

It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.

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.

We are hidden in ourselves, like a truth hidden in isolated facts. When we know that this One in us is One in all, then our truth is revealed.

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

The weak can be terrible because they try furiously to appear strong.

I believe in a spiritual world - not as anything separate from this world - but as its innermost truth. With the breath we draw we must always feel this truth, that we are living in God.

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.

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

Only in silence I find myself. Life in the city is so hectic that you lose the right perspective. It's important to know that our biggest resources are in our heart.

Love is not a mere impulse, it must contain truth, which is law.

When we accept any discipline for ourselves, we try to avoid everything except that which is necessary for our purpose; it is this purposefulness, which belongs to the adult mind, that we force upon school children. We say, "Never keep your mind aler.

I've travelled all around the world to see the rivers and the mountains, and I've spent a lot of money. I have gone to great lengths, I have seen everything, but I forgot to see just outside my house a dewdrop on a little blade of grass, a dewdrop which reflects in its convexity the whole universe around you.

To find God, you must welcome everything.

Men can only think. Women have a way of understanding without thinking. Woman was created out of God's own fancy. Man, He had to hammer into shape.

The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.

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

Music is the purest form of art, and therefore the most direct expression of beauty, with a form and spirit which is one and simple, and least encumbered with anything extraneous. We seem to feel that the manifestation of the infinite in the finite forms of creation is music itself, silent and visible.

The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.

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.

Man is worse than an animal when he is an animal.

The real frienship is like fluorescence, it shines better when everything has darken.

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age forever. He who wants to do good, knocks at the gate; He who loves, finds the door open.

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.

Whatever we treasure for ourselves separates us from others; our possessions are our limitations.

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

Those who own much have much to fear.

Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves.

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.

Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.

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.

Discipline divorced from wisdom is not true discipline, but merely the meaningless following of custom, which is only a disguise for stupidity.

Do not say, 'It is morning,' and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.

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.

When you have once taken up a responsibility, you must see it through.

Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.

Let me light my lamp", says the star, "And never debate if it will help to remove the darkness

The more one lives alone on the river or in the open country, the clearer it becomes that nothing is more beautiful or great than to perform the ordinary duties of one's daily life simply and naturally.

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

Inspiration follows aspiration.

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it. 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 hope for the patience to win my freedom. Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone; but let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.

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

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

A thorn can only be extracted if you know where it is.

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.

Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.

Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.

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.

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.

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

Unless you have found God in your own soul, the whole world will seem meaningless to you.

Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.

We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.

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.

My fancies are fireflies Specks of living light twinkling in the dark.

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.

One who has never known the turbulence of life, in whom the petals of the mysterious flower within have never opened; such a one may seem happy, may seem a saint, his single track mind may impress the multitude with its power - but he is ill equipped for life's true adventure into the infinite.

Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.