Collection of truly inspiring and poetic Rabindranath Tagore quotes on various topics such as life, love, friendship, education and spirituality.
Rabindranath Tagore popularly known as the “Bard of Bengal” , was a Bengali poet, novelist, philosopher, musician and painter who is remembered for his delicate and beautiful verses that have a magical touch.
Tagore reformulated Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art of the 19th and 20th centuries. He was an exponent of the Bengali Renaissance and a scholar who modernized it with novels, stories, songs, dances, and essays that covered a wide range of topics, from politics to religion and spirituality.
He was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his selected collection of poetry titled, “Gitanjali” .
Rabindranath Tagore Quotes
1. “The forest would be very sad if only the birds that sing the best sing.”
2. “You cannot cross the sea just by looking at the water.”
3. “If you cry at night because you don’t see the sun, the tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.”
4. “Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.”
5. “The truth is not on the side of who shouts more.”
6. “The greater we are in humility, the closer we are to greatness.”
7. “Beauty is simply reality seen through the eyes of love.”

8. “The darkness of the night is a sack overflowing with the gold of dawn.”
9. “Clouds float into my life, not to bring rain or usher in the storm, but to add color to my sunset.”
10. “When my voice falls silent with death, my heart will continue to speak to you.”
11. “The earth paints a portrait of the sun at sunrise with blooming sunflowers. She, unhappy with the portrait, erases it and paints it over and over again.
12. “I slept and dreamed that life was joy, I woke up and saw that life was service, I served and saw that service was joy.”
13. “True friendship is like phosphorescence, it shines better when everything has gone dark.”
14. “Do not limit your child to your own learning because he was born in another time.”
15. “Like a sea around the sunny island of life, death sings its endless song night and day.”
16. “Thank the flame for its light, but do not forget the foot of the lamp that, constant and patient, supports it in the shadow.”
17. “The river of truth runs through channels of lies.”
18. “Love is the ultimate meaning of everything that surrounds us. It is not a simple feeling, it is the truth, it is the joy that is at the origin of all creation.”
19. “Aim high, because the stars are hidden in your soul. Dream deeply, because every dream precedes the goal.”
20. “The flower that is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous.”
21. “Let me not pray to be protected from dangers, but to be brave in facing them. Do not let me beg to calm my pain, but so that my heart conquers it.
22. “It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.”
23. “The gift of love cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.”
24. “The butterfly does not count months but moments and has enough time.”
25. “It seems that I have loved you in countless ways, countless times, life after life, age after age forever.”
26. “It is easy to speak clearly when the whole truth is not going to be told.”
27. “Little wisdom is like water in a glass: clear, transparent, pure. Great wisdom is like the water in the sea: dark, mysterious, impenetrable.”
28. “A completely logical mind is like a knife that is only sharp. It makes the hand that uses it bleed.”
29. “Poetry is the echo of the melody of the universe in the hearts of humans.”
30. “Death does not extinguish the light, it simply puts out the lamp because dawn has come.”
31. “Let your life dance gently on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
32. “By plucking off its petals, one does not reap the beauty of the flower.”
33. “Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause to explain it.”
34. “You smiled at me and talked to me about unimportant things, and I felt like I had waited a long time just for that.”
35. “We interpret the world incorrectly, and say that it deceives us.”
36. “Music fills the infinity between two souls.”
37. “The greatest changes in the nature of women are caused by love; in man, by ambition.”
38. “We live in the world when we love it.”
39. “Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the glow of twilight on the fringes of starry silence.”
More Rabindranath Tagore quotes that will expand your mind
40. “Everything that belongs to us comes to us if we create the capacity to receive it.”
41. “The sparrow feels sorry for the load that the peacock carries on its tail.”
42. “Each creature, at birth, brings us the message that God has not yet lost hope in men.”
43. “That one who talks so much is completely hollow, you know that the empty pitcher is the one that sounds the most.”
44. “The man who has to beg for love is the most miserable of all beggars.”
45. “The stars are not afraid to look like fireflies.”
46. “The highest education is one that not only gives us information, but also makes our life in harmony with all existence.”
47. “The trees are the endless effort of the earth to speak to the sky that listens to it.”
48. “When you arrived you cried and everyone smiled with joy; when you left you smiled and left the world crying for you.”
49. “We cross infinity at every step; we meet eternity in every second.”
50. “Once we dreamed that we were strangers. We woke up and discovered that we loved each other.”
51. “The water in a container is bright; the sea water is dark. The little truth has clear words; the great truth contains a great silence.”
52. “The roots below the ground claim no reward for making the branches bear fruit.”
53. “I have lost my dew drop! Says the flower to the dawn sky, which has lost all its stars.”
54. “God hopes to recover his own flowers as coming from the hands of men.”
55. “My day is over, I am like a ship stranded on the beach at dusk, in the arms of the dance of the tides.”
56. “If no one answers your call, go your own way alone.”
57. “I will sit in the pupil of your eyes and that will take your eyes to the heart of things.”
58. “The truth raises storms against itself that spread its seed to the four winds.”
59. “The traveler has to knock on all the foreign doors to reach his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to find the innermost sanctuary of being at the end of the road.”
Other Rabindranath Tagore quotes that are pure poetry
60. “Set the wings of the bird in gold and it will never fly to heaven again.”
61. “Death belongs to life as to birth. Thus, walking is as much about lifting the foot as it is about putting it back on the ground.”
62. “The depth of friendship does not depend on the duration of the relationship.”
63. “Man enters the crowd to drown out the clamor of his own silence.”
64. “Power believes that the convulsions of its victims are due to ingratitude.”
65. “The biggest goes without hesitation with the smallest. The mediocre goes alone.”
66. “When man works, God respects him; but when man sings, God loves him.”
67. “Only in love do unity and duality not conflict.”
68. “We have been called to the concert of this world to play our instrument in the best possible way.”
69. “That the boredom of your evening does not claim more than what the desire of your morning could win.”
70. “In art, man reveals himself and not his objects.”
71. “He who is too busy doing good does not find time to be good.”
72. “You do not see what you are, but its shadow.”
73. “Turn off your light if you want, I will discover your darkness and I will love it.”
74. “Let the dead have the immortality of fame, but let it be for the living that of love.”
75. “Emancipation from the slavery of the earth does not represent freedom for the tree.”
76. “Fanaticism tries to keep the truth safe in its hands with a grip that suffocates it.”
77. “The facts are many, but the truth is only one.”
78. “To reach the moment of realization, it is necessary to cross the desert of the barren years.”
79. “What is eternal in the moment only becomes superficial if it is extended in time.”
80. “You look for joy around you and in the world. Don’t you know that it is only born in the depths of the heart?
81. “The greatest scourge of modern life is having to give importance to things that, in reality, do not have it.”
82. “I have my own version of optimism. If I can’t go through one door, I’ll go through another or make another door. Something wonderful will come, no matter how dark the present is.”
83. “Patriotism cannot be our last spiritual bastion; My refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass at the price of diamonds, and as long as I live I will never allow patriotism to prevail over humanity.”
84. “The young student sits with his head bowed over his books and his mind wandering through the dreamland of youth; where prose lurks on the desk and poetry hides in the heart.”
85. “Most people believe that the mind is a mirror that more or less accurately reflects the world around them, without realizing that it is actually the opposite, the mind itself is the main element of creation. ”
What do you think of these Rabindranath Tagore quotes?
To date, his poetry, novels, short stories, and essays are widely read throughout the world. His legacy survives in the form of paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts and some two thousand songs; most of which continue to reverberate in the eastern part of India and throughout Bangladesh.
What were your favorite quotes? Feel free to use the comments section below.