Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali Poet, Polymath)

Rabindranāth Tagore (1861–1941) was a Bengali poet, composer, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and painter who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. He is the pre-eminent literary genius not only of his native Bengal but also of South Asia—possibly the whole of Asia.

Tagore displayed an extraordinary combination of talents. He experimented with various forms of art and sought an outlet first in music, then in drama, opera, and ballet and, toward the end of his life, in painting. Tagore was a talented theatrical artist, a playwright, and a producer of plays. He also inspired and directed the revival and full development of the art of dance in modern India. Tagore is extraordinary for his versatility, exceptional range, and complexity of a creative perspective.

Born in Calcutta, Tagore went to study law in England at age 17 but found the weather depressing. He returned to Calcutta after a year and concurrently wrote, composed music, painted, and did political work. He gained worldwide attention with the English translation of the spiritual verse Gītāñjali (1910; Song Offering,) which featured an appreciatory foreword by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats.

Tagore’s first book was a volume of poetry, Kabi-Kahini (1878; The Tale of the Poet,) followed by novels, short stories, and dramatic works. In addition to Gītāñjali, his major works include Binodini (1902; Eng trans 1964, the first modern novel by an Indian writer,) the collection of poems about childhood The Crescent Moon (1913,) and his best-known play, Chitra (1914.) He also wrote Jivan Smriti (1911; My Reminiscences, 1917) and Chhelebela (1940; My Boyhood Days.)

As a philosopher, Tagore challenged the binarism of India’s spiritual values and the spirit of the West. He held that one’s native culture could be reconciled by acknowledging and absorbing the good in other cultures. Taking into consideration the great conflicts of his time, Tagore articulated his vision of the “universal man.” He wrote, “The unity of human civilization can be better maintained by linking up in fellowship and cooperation of the different civilizations of the world.” And, “Let the mind be universal. The individual should not be sacrificed.”

Tagore’s versatile genius wielded a profound influence on the psyche of the Bengali people. He introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. Only a few literary giants—Shakespeare, Dante, Pushkin, and Goethe—have had as comparable an impact on a people’s language, literature, and cultural identity as Tagore has. He also culturally and politically inspired India and Bangladesh, where he remains the subject of great pride and admiration.

Tagore has the rare distinction of writing the national anthems of three countries: India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. He was knighted in 1915 but resigned the honor in 1919 as a protest against British policy in Punjab.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Rabindranath Tagore

The potentiality of perfection outweighs actual contradictions… Existence in itself is here to prove that it cannot be an evil.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Existence

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.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Morning

You are invited to the festival of this world and your life is blessed.
—Rabindranath Tagore

The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his very life. They are not materials gathered from outside.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Singing

The realization of our soul has its moral and its spiritual side. The moral side represents training of unselfishness, control of desire; the spiritual side represents sympathy and love. They should be taken together and never separated. The cultivation of the merely moral side of our nature leads us to the dark region of narrowness and hardness of heart, to the intolerant arrogance of goodness; and the cultivation of the merely spiritual side of our nature leads us to a still darker region of revelry in intemperance of imagination.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Spirituality

Love’s gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Gift

Man is immortal; therefore he must die endlessly. For life is a creative idea; it can only find itself in changing forms.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Immortality

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

I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy, I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Life, Service, Act, Joy, Vice, Dream

We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Humility

Let me light my lamp, says the tiny star; and never debate whether it will dispel the darkness.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Light

Love adorns itself; it seeks to prove inward joy by outward beauty.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Joy

You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don’t let yourself indulge in vain wishes.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Action, Adventure

Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty that can modulate their isolation into a harmony with the whole.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Harmony

God respects me when I work; but God loves me when I sing.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Singing, One liners

The burden of the self is lightened with I laugh at myself.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Laughter

What is Art? It is the response of man’s creative soul to the call of the Real.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Artists, Art, Arts

The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added mystery in each new revelation.
—Rabindranath Tagore

Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: One liners, Love

In the dualism of death and life there is a harmony. We know that the life of a soul, which is finite in its expression and infinite in its principle, must go through the portals of death in its journey to realise the infinite. It is death which is monistic, it has no life in it. But life is dualistic; it has an appearance as well as truth; and death is that appearance, that maya, which is an inseparable companion to life.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Harmony

All that is not given is lost.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Generosity

Love’s overbrimming mystery joins death and life. It has filled my cup of pain with joy.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Love

I am restless. I am athirst for faraway things. My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance. O Great Beyond, O the keen call of thy flute! I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am bound in this spot evermore.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Adventure

In the mountain, stillness surges up to explore its own height; In the lake, movement stands still to contemplate its own depth.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Wilderness

Life is given to use, we earn it by giving it.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Service

O Woman, you are not merely the handiwork of God, but also of men; these are ever endowing you with beauty from their own hearts… . You are one-half woman and one-half dream.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Woman

Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Faith, Light, One liners

While God waits for His temple to be built of love, men bring stones.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Love

When we rejoice in our fullness, then we can part without fruits with joy.
—Rabindranath Tagore

The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness. It’s one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment’s hesitation to crush beauty and life out of them, molding them into money.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Topics: Money, Greed

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