Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was an Indian writer, poet, composer, painter, educationist and philosopher. He was one of the most influential thinker of India. He was born in a wealthy family in Calcutta. His first book was published at the age of seventeen. In 1901, he founded a school with a mission of blending Eastern and Western thoughts. He received Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 and knighthood by the British in 1915. However, he resigned knighthood in protest of British policies in India. His famous works are - Geetanjali (for which he got Nobel Prize), The Crescent Moon, Chitra, Binodini and The Religion of Man.Wisdom & Quotes
- (The poets' role is that of) capturing on their instruments the secret stir of life in the air and giving it voice in the music of prophecy.
- When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies breaks forth from the heart;
- Geetanjali
- Deliverance is not for me in renunciation…
The delights of sight and hearing and touch
Will bear thy delight.
- Geetanjali
- It is the docile who achieve the most impossible things in this world.
- You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.
- There is no 'next' after you are dead and gone from your own world.
- Do not blame the food because you have no appetite.
- Boasting is only a masked shame, it does not truly believe in itself.
- Plunge into the deep without fear, with the gladness of April in your heart.
- Bravery ceases to be bravery at a certain point, and becomes mere foolhardiness.
- I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my little child.
- He may only chastise who loves.
- If it is necessary to die in order to live like men, what harm in dying?
- To be constantly changing one's plans isn't decision at all - it's indecision.
- If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out.
- Wrong is wrong only when you are at liberty to choose.
- Merely to exist is not enough.
- Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree.
- God seeks comrades and claims love; the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.
- Mistakes live in the neighbourhood of truth and therefore delude us.
- The thing which seems so glorious when viewed from the heights of the country's cause looks so muddy when seen from the bottom. One begins by getting angry and then feels disgusted.
- It is no easy task to lead men. But it is easy enough to drive them.
- I never give answers. I lead on from one question to another. That is my leadership.
- Life itself is a strange mixture. We have to take it as it is, try to understand it, and then to better it.
- Man is a rough-hewn and woman a finished product.
- My eyes have seen much, but they are not weary. My ears have heard much, but they thirst for more.
- The past is always with us, for nothing that once was time can ever depart.
- A thorn can only be extracted if you know where it is.
- Repentance is a gift of God's grace.
- When you have once taken up a responsibility, you must see it through.
- It's far better to make people angry than to make them ashamed.
- Man goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own clamour of silence.
- To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.
- Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.
- 'I am ashamed of my emptiness,'
'I know how poor I am when I
see you ,' said the Work to the Word.
- Stray Birds
- The butterfly counts not moths but moments, and has time enough.
- A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.
- 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.
- Power takes as ingratitude the writhing of its victims.
- Truth reveals itself in beauty.
- Leave this chanting and singing and telling
Worship in this lonely
Dark corner of a temple? Open
Thy eyes and see,
Thy God is not before thee,
He is there where the tiller is
Tilling the hard
Ground and the pathmaker is
Breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower.
- Sadhana
Brahmabandhab Upadhyay