Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
— Stray Birds
Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, author, playwright, musician, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter, and one of the foremost figures of the Bengal Renaissance. In 1913 he became the first Indian and non-European to win a Nobel Prize in any category, and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
He wrote and composed the national anthems of India and Bangladesh, and he reshaped Bengali literature and music. Known as "the Bard of Bengal," he also went by the names Gurudeb, Kobiguru and Bishwokobi. Born in Calcutta, he wrote poetry as an eight-year-old and released his first substantial poems at sixteen under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha. Stray Birds, Gitanjali and The Home and the World are among his most quoted works in our library.
He wrote and composed the national anthems of India and Bangladesh, and he reshaped Bengali literature and music. Known as "the Bard of Bengal," he also went by the names Gurudeb, Kobiguru and Bishwokobi. Born in Calcutta, he wrote poetry as an eight-year-old and released his first substantial poems at sixteen under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha. Stray Birds, Gitanjali and The Home and the World are among his most quoted works in our library.
Most quoted works
- The Home and the World 8
- Sadhana 3
- Stray Birds 3
- Gitanjali: Song Offerings 2
- The King of the Dark Chamber 2
Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.
— Gitanjali: Song Offerings
The young student sits with his head bent over his books, and his mind straying in youth's dreamland; where prose is prowling on the desk and poetry hiding in the heart.
— Lover's Gift
Life is indefinite--a bundle of contradictions. We men, with our ideas, strive to give it a particular shape by melting it into a particular mould--into the definiteness of success.
— The Home and the World
The world has kissed my Soul with its pain, asking for its return in Songs.
— Stray Birds
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, butfor the heart to conquer it.
— Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore
I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.
— Gitanjali: Song Offerings
My husband was very eager to take me out of purdah. One day I said to him, "What do I want with the outside world?""The outside world may want you," he replied.
— The Home and the World
A fancy comes to me--that desire can never attain its object--it need never attain it.
— The King of the Dark Chamber
When at last we have to die it will be time enough to get cold. While we are on fire let us seethe and boil.
— The Home and the World
Man's poverty is abysmal, his wants are endless till he becomes truly conscious of his soul. Till then, the world to him is in a state of flux - a phantasm that is and is not.
— Sadhana
When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.