Zitate von Rabindranath Tagore

„Es ist sehr einfach, glücklich zu sein, aber es ist sehr schwierig, einfach zu sein.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

„Ich schlief und träumte, das Leben sei Freude.
Ich erwachte und sah, das Leben war Pflicht.
Ich handelte, und siehe, die Pflicht war Freude.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

„Sie können das Meer nicht einfach überqueren, indem Sie stehen und auf das Wasser starren.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

„Wolken schweben aus anderen Tagen in mein Leben, nicht länger, um Regen oder Sturm abzuwerfen, sondern um meinem Sonnenuntergangshimmel Farbe zu verleihen.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

„DER GLEICHE Strom des Lebens, // der Tag und Nacht durch meine Adern // fließt, fließt durch die Welt und tanzt in // rhythmischen Maßen.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore, buch Gitanjali

Gitanjali (Sangesopfer), Kurt Wolff Verlag, München o. J., Nr. 69, Projekt Gutenberg-DE http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/gitanjali-6916/2
Engl.: "[The] same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures." - Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Macmillan & Co., London 1913, Nr. 69, Wikisource

„Ich will jedoch nicht zögern, das Große in Europa anzuerkennen, denn Großes hat es ohne Zweifel. Wir können nicht anders als es von Herzen lieben und bewundern – dies Europa, von dem sich in Kunst und Literatur ein unerschöpflicher Strom von Schönheit und Wahrheit ergießt, alle Länder und Zeiten befruchtend; dies Europa, das mit titanischem Geiste in nie ermüdender Kraft die Höhen und Tiefen des Weltalls durchmißt, das unendlich Große und unendlich Kleine mit seinem Wissen umfaßt und alle Kräfte von Herz und Verstand dazu verwendet, die Kranken zu heilen und all das Elend zu mildern, das wir bis jetzt in hoffnungsloser Resignation hinnahmen, dies Europa, das die Erde dahin bringt, uns mehr Frucht zu spenden, als möglich schien, indem es mit Güte und Gewalt alle großen Kräfte der Natur in den Dienst des Menschen zwingt.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

Nationalismus, Neuer Geist-Verlag, Leipzig 1918, S. 77 f., Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/nationalismusdeu00tago/page/77
Original engl.: "I must not hesitate to acknowledge where Europe is great, for great she is without doubt. We cannot help loving her with all our heart, and paying her the best homage of our admiration, – the Europe who, in her literature and art, is pouring an inexhaustible cascade of beauty and truth fertilizing all countries and all time; the Europe who, with a mind which is titanic in its untiring power, is sweeping the height and the depth of the universe, winning her homage of knowledge from the infinitely great and the infinitely small, applying all the resources of her great intellect and heart in healing the sick and alleviating those miseries of man which up till now we were contented to accept in a spirit of hopeless resignation; the Europe who is making the earth yield more fruit than seemed possible, coaxing and compelling the great forces of nature into man's service." - Nationalism, The Macmillan Company, New York 1917, S. 82 f., Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/nationalism00tagogoog/page/n89

„Das Hauptziel des Lehrens ist nicht, Bedeutungen zu erklären, sondern an die Tür des Geistes zu klopfen.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

Jivansmriti (Meine Lebenserinnerungen), zitiert nach Christine Kupfer: Bildung zum Weltmenschen. Rabindranath Tagores Philosophie und Pädagogik, Transcript, Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-8376-2544-8, S. 303, Google Books https://books.google.de/books?id=ur7WBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA303&dq=%22das+hauptziel%22
Engl.: "The main object of teaching is not to explain meanings, but to knock at the door of the mind." - My Reminiscences, The Macmillan Company, New York 1917, S. 116, Internet Archive https://archive.org/stream/MyReminiscences-English-RabindranathTagore/tagorememory#117

„Weine nicht, wenn die Sonne aus deinem Leben untergeht, denn die Tränen lassen dich die Sterne nicht sehen.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

„Müde schlief ich auf müßigem Bette // Im Wahn, daß die Arbeit ein Ende hätte. // Am Morgen, da wachte ich auf und fand, // Daß mein Garten voll Blumenwundern stand.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

Geheimes Wachsen, in: Lyrik des Ostens, Carl Hanser Verlag, München 1952, S. 223, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.286211/page/n221
Engl.: "I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers." - Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Macmillan & Co., London 1913, Nr. 81, Wikisource

„You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

„Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God's dust is greater than your idol.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

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Stray Birds (1916)

„If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

„when you came you cried and everybody smiled with joy; when you go smile and let the world cry for you.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

„Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

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Quelle: Stray Birds (1916)

„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, but
for the heart to conquer it.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

Quelle: Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore

„I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service is joy.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

Quoted often without citation http://www.tagorefoundationinternational.com http://rupkatha.com/V2/n4/11Tagorephilosohy.pdf
Compare this verse verse written by Ellen Sturgis Hooper:
::"I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty."
Disputed

„It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.“

—  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 of evolution are merged in unity.“

—  Rabindranath Tagore

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Kontext: Indeed, the realisation of the paramātman, the supreme soul, within our antarātman, our inner individual soul, is in a state of absolute completion. We cannot think of it as non-existent and depending on our limited powers for its gradual construction. 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 of evolution are merged in unity. In that everlasting abode of the ātaman, the soul, the revelation of the paramātman, the supreme soul, is already complete. Therefore the Upanishads say: He who knows Brahman, the true, the all-conscious, and the infinite as hidden in the depths of the soul, which is the supreme sky (the inner sky of consciousness), enjoys all objects of desire in union with the all-knowing Brahman.

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

—  Rabindranath Tagore

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Kontext: That side of our existence whose direction is towards the infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy. There the reign of necessity ceases, and there our function is not to get but to be. To be what? To be one with Brahma. For the region of the infinite is the region of unity. Therefore the Upanishads say: If man apprehends God he becomes true. Here it is becoming, it is not having more. Words do no gather bulk when you know their meaning; they become true by being one with the idea.