Rabindranath Tagore on Love, Life and Living

“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!”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

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

“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Collected Poems And Plays Of Rabindranath Tagore

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“Don't limit a child to your own learning, for she was born in another time.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

“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

“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of
Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

We live in the world when we love it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

“You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“The song I came to sing
remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in 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

“Age considers; youth ventures.”
― 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