Rabindranath Tagore Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

"The world speaks to me in colours, my soul answers in music."

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

"The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies."

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

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

"The burden of the self is lightened when I laugh at myself."

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

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

"The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words that are clear; the great truth has great silence."

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

"The real friendship is that which enables us to become what we can be."

"We live in this world when we love it."

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

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

"The small flower has its own beauty, and the little grass its own place in the world."

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

"The real freedom is freedom from the claims of the self."

"Let this be my last word, that I trust in thy love."

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

"That I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life."

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

"The world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover."

"The waterfall sings, ‘I find my song, when I find my freedom."

"The mystery of creation is like the darkness of night—it is great. Delusions of knowledge are like the fog of the morning."

"Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away."

"The tears of the earth keep her smiles in bloom."

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

"Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart like the evening among the silent trees."

"Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God's dust is greater than your idol."

"Man is a born child, his power is the power of growth."

"Rest belongs to the work as the eyelids to the eyes."

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

"We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility."

"Never be afraid of the moments—thus sings the voice of the everlasting."

"The mind, sharp but not broad, sticks at every point but does not move."

"Man does not reveal himself in his history, he struggles up through it."

"The dry river-bed finds no thanks for its past."

"The bird wishes it were a cloud. The cloud wishes it were a bird."

"Do not blame your food because you have no appetite."

"The trees, like the longings of the earth, stand a-tiptoe to peep at the heaven."

"Thank the flame for its light, but do not forget the lampholder standing in the shade with constancy of patience."

"The scabbard is content to be dull when it protects the keenness of the sword."

"Set bird's wings with gold and it will never again soar in the sky."

"Kicks only raise dust and not crops from the earth."

"The fountain of death makes the still water of life play."

"The movement of life has its rest in its own music."

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

"Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty that can modulate their isolation into a harmony with the whole."

"We have come to this world to accept it, not merely to know it."

"We may become powerful by knowledge, but we attain fulness by sympathy."

"Education should make for the culture of the soul, and not merely for the feeding of intellect or the cramming of memory."

"The object of education is to give man the unity of truth."

"Education can only become natural and wholesome when it is the direct fruit of a living and growing knowledge."

"For true education is to realize at every step how our training and knowledge have organic connection with our surroundings."

"The education of India is to enable this mind of India to find out truth, to make this truth its own wherever found and to give expression to it in such a manner as only it can do."

"The next point is that, in education, the most important factor must be the inspiring atmosphere of creative activity."

"Our education should be in full touch with our complete life, economical, intellectual, aesthetic, social and spiritual."

"Educational institutions should be in the very heart of our society, connected with it by the living bonds of varied co-operations."

"Education should not be dragged out of its native element, the life-current of the people."

"The highest mission of education is to help us to realize the inner principle of the unity of all knowledge and all the activities of our social and spiritual being."

"The teaching should be like the overflow water of this spring of culture, spontaneous and inevitable."

"We have to accept education from our teachers in a right spirit, judge it by our own standard and make use of it by our own creative power."

"Children are God's own creation."

"We should follow God's direction about the growth of our children's minds towards freedom and light."

"We rob the child of his earth to teach him geography, of language to teach him grammar."

"His hunger is for the Epic, but he is supplied with the chronicles of facts and dates."

"The greatest of educations for which we came prepared is neglected when knowledge separates us from the world around us."

"Education should help us discover truth rather than merely memorize information."

"Knowledge becomes meaningful when it is connected with our own observations and experiences."

"Learning should encourage us to discover principles, form ideas and apply them to life."

"An educational institution must not only instruct, but live; not only think, but produce."

"Music and art must have their prominent seats of honour in a true centre of culture."

"Education should bring intellectual, aesthetic, social and spiritual life into harmony."

"Children learn best when their minds are allowed to grow towards freedom and light."

"True learning grows through creative activity, exploration and the exchange of ideas."

"Education must remain connected with the practical needs and experiences of society."

"Knowledge reaches its fuller purpose when it helps us live in harmony with humanity and the world."

"Education consists, not in giving information which the boys will forget as soon as they conveniently can, but in allowing the boys to develop their own characters in the way that is natural to them."

"Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it."

"Trust love even if it brings sorrow. Do not close up your heart."

"This love between you and me is simple as a song."

"Hands cling to hands and eyes linger on eyes; thus begins the record of our hearts."

"If you would have it so, I will end my singing. If it sets your heart aflutter, I will take away my eyes from your face."

"I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age forever."

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

"By all means they try to hold me secure who love me in this world. But it is otherwise with thy love which is greater than theirs, and thou keepest me free."

"If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart, thy love for me still waits for my love."

"My heart longs to join in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice."