Rabindranath Tagore

If our relation with the divine were all a thing of our own making, how should we rely on it as true, and how should it lend us support? Yes, we must know that within us we have that where space and time cease to rule and where the links …

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, …

In the region of nature, which is the region of diversity, we grow by acquisition; in the spiritual world, which is the region of unity, we grow by losing ourselves, by uniting.

Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to this idea of our unity with the infinite being.

That side of our existence whose direction is towards the infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy.

It exists to show that the bonds of law can only be explained by love; they are like body and soul. Joy is the realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.

Compulsion is not indeed the final appeal to man, but joy is. And joy is everywhere

The infinite being has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude. And in him who is love the finite and the infinite are made one.

In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the other the impersonal. At one you have the positive assertion — Here I am; at the other the equally strong denial — I am not.

Our heart ever changes its place till it finds love, and then it has its rest. But this rest itself is an intense form of activity where utter quiescence and unceasing energy meet at the same point in love.

In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and are lost. Only in love are unity and duality not at variance.

Civilisation can never sustain itself upon cannibalism of any form. For that by which alone man is true can only be nourished by love and justice.

We never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, …

Man is not entirely an animal. He aspires to a spiritual vision, which is the vision of the whole truth. This gives him the highest delight, because it reveals to him the deepest harmony that exists between him and his surroundings.

We at once feel that cruelty to him is cruelty to ourselves, to make him small is stealing from our own humanity...

Of course man is useful to man, because his body is a marvellous machine and his mind an organ of wonderful efficiency. But he is a spirit as well, and this spirit is truly known only by love.

love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at the root of all creation.

Want of love is a degree of callousness; for love is the perfection of consciousness.

The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.

The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain …

All the great utterances of man have to be judged not by the letter but by the spirit — the spirit which unfolds itself with the growth of life in history.

I dive down into the depth of the ocean of forms, hoping to gain the perfect pearl of the formless.

Even so, in death the same unknown will appear as ever known to me. And because I love this life, I know I shall love death as well.** 95

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.