Rabindranath Tagore

“Travolti dal torrente dell'incertezza, i nostri sogni hanno teso le bracciaPer afferrare la terra.In mattoni e pietra si irrigidisconoi loro sogni e così sono state costruitele città dell'uomo.”

“It is easy to drown yourself effortlessly into that which is truly profound and do no realise its true worth. And since the restless illusion which brings no pleasure even if you drain it to the dregs lead us by the nose and makes us dance a merry dance to its tune and we take it to be the lost desirable thing”

“If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out.”

“By unrighteousness man prospers, gains what appears desirable, conquer enemies, but perishes a the root.”

“Cuando mi voz calle con la muerte, mi corazón te seguirá hablando".”

“My heart, the bird of the wilderness,has found its sky in your eyes.They are the cradle of the morning,they are the kingdom of the stars.My songs are lost in their depths.Let me but soar in that sky,in its lonely immensity.Let me but cleave its cloudsand spread wings in its sunshine.”

“XXIXYou have set me among those who are defeated.I know it is not for me to win, nor to leave the game.I shall plunge into the pool although but to sink to the bottom.I shall play the game of my undoing.I shall stake all I have and when I lose my last penny I shall stake myself, and then I think I shall have won through my utter defeat.”

“Alas, why are my nights all thus lost? Ah, why do I ever miss hissight whose breath touches my sleep?”

“Oh my only friend, my best beloved, the gates are open in my house — do not pass by like a dream.”

“I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands.That is why it is so late and why I have been guilty of such omissions.They come with their laws and their codes to bind me fast; but Ievade them ever, for I am only waiting for love to give myself up atlast into his hands.People blame me and call me heedless; I doubt not they are rightin their blame.The market day is over and work is all done for the busy. Thosewho came to call me in vain have gone back in anger. I am onlywaiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands.”

“The echo mocks her origin to prove she is the original.”

“The water vessel, taken as a vessel only, raises the question, "Why does it exist at all?" Through its fitness of construction, it offers the apology for its existence. But where it is a work of beauty it has no question to answer; it has nothing to do, but to be.”

“Spurious fame spreads from tongue to tongue like the fog of the early dawn before the sun rises.”

“If someone smells a flower and says he does not understand, the reply to him is: there is nothing to understand, it is only a scent. If he persists, saying: that I know, but what does it all mean? Then one has either to change the subject, or make it more abstruse by saying that the scent is the shape which the universal joy takes in the flower.”

“The song being great in its own wealth, why should it wait upon the words? Rather does it begin where mere words fail. Its power lies in the region of the inexpressible; it tells us what the words cannot.”

“So in the streets of Calcutta I sometimes imagine myself a foreigner, and only then do I discover how much is to be seen, which is lost so long as its full value in attention is not paid. It is the hunger to really see which drives people to travel to strange places.”

“Dreams can never be made captive.”

“Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree.”

“My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening.”

“These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination.”

“If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone.”

“When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.”

“Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubtat being told that it is a fragmentawaiting perfection.”

“Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance”

“Only when waves fall on the shore do they make a harmonious sound; Only when breezes shake the woods do we hear a rustling in the leaves. Only from a marriage of two forces does music arise in the world. Where the is no love, where listeners are dumb, there can never be song.”

“The real frienship is like fluorescence, it shines better when everything has darken.”

“These days my sole desire is that our lives should be simple and straightforward, that all around us there should be peace and cheerfulness, that our way of life should be unostentatious and full of bounty, that our needs should be small and our aims high and our efforts unselfish and our work for others more important than our work for ourselves.”

“Great calm, generous detachment, selfless love, disinterested effort: these are what make for success in life. If you can find peace in yourself and can spread comfort around you, you will be happier than an empress.”

“All my work and all my dealings with people feel very easy. Actually, everything is simple. There is one straight road - if you open your eyes you can go along it. I don't see the need to search for all sorts of clever short cuts. Happiness and sadness are both on the road - there is no road that avoids them - but peace is found only on this road, nowhere else.”

“for we women are not only the deities of the household fire, but the flame of the soul itself.”

“I am willing to serve my country, but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.”

“Ah, thou hast made my heart captive in the endless meshes of thy music, my master!”

“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 for the patience to win my freedom.”

“Unending LoveI seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...In life after life, in age after age, forever.My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,In life after life, in age after age, forever.Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,It's ancient tale of being apart or together.As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.You become an image of what is remembered forever.You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.At the heart of time, love of one for another.We have played along side millions of lovers,Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,the distressful tears of farewell,Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in youThe love of all man's days both past and forever:Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours -And the songs of every poet past and forever.”

“Come oh come ye tea-thirsty restless ones -- the kettle boils, bubbles and sings, musically.”

“Yes, this is the logic of the Nation. And itwill never heed the voice of truth and goodness.It will go on in its ring-dance of moral corruption,linking steel unto steel, and machine untomachine; trampling under its tread all the sweetflowers of simple faith and the living ideals ofman.”

“Some day I shall sing to thee in the sunrise of some other world, I have seen thee before in the light of the earth, in the love of man.”

“It is not easy to get rid of weeds; but it is easy, by a process of neglect, to ruin your food crops and let them revert to their primitive state of wildness. [...] In political civilization, the state is an abstraction and the relationship of men utilitarian. Because it has no roots in sentiments, it is so dangerously easy to handle. Half a century has been enough for you to master this machine; and there are men among you, whose fondness for it exceeds their love for the living ideals which were born with the birth of your nation and nursed in your centuries. It is like a child who in the excitement of his play imagines he likes his playthings better than his mother.”

“...the authors he has himself discovered are his own exclusive territory, like the saloon compartment of a special train.”

“Amit likens fashion to a mask, and style to beauty of countenance. Style, he feels, belongs to the literary elite, who live by their own wishes. And fashion is for the ordinary lot, who make it their business to please other people. . . . You may view a professional dancing girl beneath the awning of a public marquee; but for the first glimpse of the bride’s face during the shubhodrishti ritual, a veil of Benarasi fabric is required. The marquee belongs to fashion, the Benarasi veil--which reveals the special one’s countenance shaded by a special hue--to style.”

“My dearest life, I know you are not mine forever; but do love me even if it’s for this moment. After that I shall vanish into the forest where you cast me, I won’t ask anyone for anything again. Give me something that can last me till I die.”

“Today I feel that I shall win through. I have come to the gateway of the simple; I am now content to see things as they are. I have gained freedom myself; I shall allow freedom to others. In my work will be my salvation.”

“The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.”

“Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.”

“Once we dreamt that we were strangers. We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.”

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

“Never be afraid of the moments--thus sings the voice of the everlasting.”

“I thought that my voyage had come to its end at the last limit of my power, that the path before me was closed, that provisions were exhausted, and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity, but I find that thy will knows no end in me, and when old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart, and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.”

“Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict.”

“The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.”