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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (8,183)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,166)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (6,009)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,209)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,916)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,473)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,968)
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Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Cicero, Marcus Tullius • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Goethe, Johann von • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Stevenson, Adlai • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
Recent Feedback
- Dave on The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 6, l. 180ff [Odysseus to Nausicaa] (c. 700 BC) [tr. Rieu (1946)]
- Richard McBroom on “What I Believe,” Forum and Century (Oct 1930)
- Marcus Aurelius - (Spurious) | WIST on Meditations, Book 2, #11 [tr. Gill (2014)]
- Richard McBroom on “What I Believe,” Forum and Century (Oct 1930)
- Elizabeth II - Address to the Nation (5 Apr 2020) | WIST on “We’ll Meet Again” (1939) [with Hughie Charles]
- Pratchett, Terry - The Last Hero (2001) | WIST on Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3366 (1732)
- King, Stephen - On Writing, ch. 12 (2000) | WIST on In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
- King, Stephen - On Writing, ch. 12 (2000) | WIST on On the Art of Writing, Lecture 12 “On Style,” Cambridge University (28 Jan 1914)
- Richard McBroom on “What I Believe,” Forum and Century (Oct 1930)
- Phillips, Wendell - "Mobs and Education," Speech, Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston (16 Dec 1860) | WIST on “The Boston Mob,” speech, Antislavery Meeting, Boston (21 Oct 1855)
Quotations by Tagore, Rabindranath
Faith is the bird that feels the light
And sings when the dawn is still dark.Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
“Fireflies” (1926)
Full text.
The Lord respects me when I work,
But He loves me when I sing.Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
“Fireflies” (1926)
(Source)
Alt. trans.:
"God honours me when I work,
He loves me when I sing."
The mountain remains unmoved at seeming defeat by the mist.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
“Fireflies” (1926)
Full text.
I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
“Waiting,” Gitanjali (1913)
Alt trans:
"The song I came to sing
remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing
and in unstringing my instrument.""The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day,
I have spent my days in stringing and unstringing my instrument."Sometimes titled "Song Unsung"
Full text.
You can’t cross the sea merely by staring at the water.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
(Attributed)
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
(Attributed)
Alt trans:
"Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come."
"Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come."
"Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come."
"Nirvana is not the blowing out of the candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come."
I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was duty.
I acted and behold, duty was joy.Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
(Attributed)
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
(Attributed)
Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand
With a grip that kills it.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Fireflies (1928)
(Source)
Knowledge is partial, because our intellect is an instrument, it is only a part of us, it can give us information about things which can be divided and analysed, and whose properties can be classified part by part. But Brahma is perfect, and knowledge which is partial can never be a knowledge of him.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life (1916)
When we watch a child trying to walk, we see its countless failures; its success are but few. If we had to limit our observation within a narrow space of time, the sight would be cruel. But we find that in spite of its repeated failures, there is an impetus of joy in the child which sustains it in its seemingly impossible task. We see it does not think of its falls so much as of its power to keep its balance though for only a moment.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Sadhana: The Realization of Life, ch. 3 (1913)
(Source)
If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Stray Birds (1916)
Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Stray Birds (1916)
Every child comes with the message that God is not yet tired of the man.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Stray Birds (1916)
Alt. trans.: "Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man."
If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Stray Birds (1916)
Full text.
Let this be my last word, that I trust in thy love.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Stray Birds (1916)
Full text.
Blessed is he whose fame does not outshine his truth.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Stray Birds, #296 (1914)
What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Stray Birds, ch. 18 (1914)
The truth comes as conqueror only because we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
The Fourfold Way of India (1924)
Often paraphrased: "Truth comes as conqueror only to those who have lost the art of receiving it as friend."
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.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
The Gardener, #85 (1915)
(Source)
