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Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore Quotes

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Famous Rabindranath Tagore Quotes

“There is a point where in the mystery of existence contradictions meet; where movement is not all movement and stillness is not all stillness; where the idea and the form, the within and the without, are united; where infinite becomes finite, yet not losing its infinity. If this meeting is dissolved, then things become unreal.”

IfsIdeasFormUnitedExistenceMysteryMovementLosingInfiniteMeetingsContradictionInfinityStillnessFiniteUnreal
Book:Essays
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“We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing that we do. There are many crimes which are the creation of man himself, the wrongfulness of which is put down to their divergence from habit, custom, or tradition. But cruelty is not of these. It is a fundamental sin, and admits of no argument or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, its protest against cruelty is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us - in fact, anyone who does not join in is dubbed a crank.”

IfsThinkingHeartDoeFactsGrowsSinNiceHeardGoes OnArgumentFundamentalsFleshKarmaCrueltyManageDistinctionProtestVegetarianVeganVegetarianismCrankCallousVegetarian Diet
Author:Rabindranath Tagore
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“Life is perpetually creative because it contains in itself that surplus which ever overflows the boundaries of the immediate time and space, restlessly pursuing its adventure of expression in the varied forms of self-realization.”

LifeSelfFormLife IsSpaceCreativeAdventureExpressionBoundariesSelf RealizationRealizationTime And SpaceSurplusRealisationOverflowSelf Realisation
Book:The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore: A miscellany
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“O poor, unthinking human heart! Error will not go away, logic and reason are slow to penetrate.We cling with both arms to false hope, refusing to believe in the weightiest proofs against it, embracing it with all our strength. In the end it escapes, ripping our veins and draining our heart's blood; until, regaining consciousness, we rush to fall into snares of delusion all over again”

BelieveHumansHeartEndsReasonFallPoorConsciousnessBloodArmsLogicErrorsProofDelusionGoing AwayHuman HeartVeinsPenetrateSnaresDrainingFalse Hope
Book:Selected Short Stories
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“Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence? I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds. Open your doors and look abroad. From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before. In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.”

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Book:Delphi Collected Works of Rabindranath Tagore (Illustrated)
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“For the current of our spiritual life creeds, rituals and channels that may thwart or help, according to their fixity or openness. When a symbol or spiritual idea becomes rigidly elaborate in its construction, it supplants the idea which it should support.”

ShouldMayIdeasHelpingSpiritualSupportCurrentsSymbolsRitualOpennessConstructionSpiritual LifeCreeds
Book:The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore: A miscellany
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“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.”

LifeLooksHeartMayFeelingsHandsPainWinningMy OwnDangerFailurePrayingMercyLet MeSavedConquerFearlessGrantsCowardAlliesAnxiousCraveBattlefieldsI May Not Be
Book:Delphi Collected Works of Rabindranath Tagore (Illustrated)
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“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.”

MindStillsEndsLightTeachTeacherTeachingSubjectsStudentsLessonsFlamesRepeatsLoadTrafficLamps
Book:The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore: A miscellany
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“We try to realize the essential unity of the world with the conscious soul of man; we learn to perceive the unity held together by the one Eternal Spirit, whose power creates the earth, the sky, and the stars, and at the same time irradiates our mind.”

MenWorldTryingMindSoulEarthTogetherSpiritStarsRealizingSkyEssentialsEternalConsciousUnityPerceiveEternal LoveBeing Together
Book:The Complete Works of Rabindranath Tagore (Illustrated Edition)
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“We manage to swallow flesh, only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing we do.”

ThinkingFoodFleshManageVegetarianVeganVegetarianismVegetarian Diet
Book:Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore: Being a Treasury of Over Ten Thousand Invaluable and Inspiring Thoughts, Views, and Obervations on about Eight Hundred Subjects of Popular Interest, Collected from the Speeches and Writings of These Three Great Leaders of Modern India
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“It sometimes strikes me how immensely fortunate I am that each day should take its place in my life, either reddened with the rising and setting sun, or refreshingly cool with deep, dark clouds, or blooming like a white flower in the moonlight. What untold wealth!”

LifeInspirationalShouldSometimesWealthDarkWhiteSunFlowerInspirational LifeCloudsStrikesSettingSettingsFortunateRisingEach DayMoonlightBloomingDark CloudsDeep DarkWhite Flowers
Book:Glimpses of Bengal: Selected from the Letters of Sir Rabindranath Tagore, 1885 to 1895
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“From the grasses in the field to the stars in the sky, each one is doing just that; and there is such profound peace and surpassing beauty in nature because none of these tries forcibly to transgress its limitations.”

LifeInspirationalTryingStarsSkyFieldsInspirational LifeProfoundLimitationGrassNature BeautySurpassingStars In The Sky
Book:The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore: A miscellany
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“Yet what each one does is by no means of little moment. The grass has to put forth all its energy to draw sustenance from the uttermost tips of its rootlets simply to grow where it is as grass; it does not vainly strive to become a banyan tree; and so the earth gains a lovely carpet of green.”

LifeInspirationalMeanLittlesDoeMomentsEarthEnergyGrowsTreeInspirational LifeDrawsGainsGreenStriveLovelyGrassCarpetSustenanceLittle Moments
Book:The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore: A miscellany
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“We cannot look upon our lives as dreams of a dreamer who has no awakening in all time. We have a personality to which matter and force are unmeaning unless related to something infinitely personal, whose nature we have discovered, in some measure, in human love, in the greatness of the good, in the martyrdom of heroic souls, in the ineffable beauty of nature, which can never be a mere physical fact nor anything but an expression of personality.”

LifeHumansLooksSoulMatterFactsDreamForceOur LivesGreatnessExpressionPersonalityMereAwakeningAll TimeRelatedLook UpDreamerHeroicMartyrdomNature BeautyIneffableHuman Love
Book:My Life In My Words
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