From the Jacket:

 

Rabindranath Tagore was a multi-faceted genius. His universalism combined the finer ideas of Eastern and Western philosophy. His deep roots in India's ancient culture were reflected in his creative manifestations - in poetry, music, ballet, drama, novel and painting.

This book of quotations presents a bouquet of his thoughts on love, freedom, greed, spirituality and other elements of modern life.

Introduction

A book of hundreds of Rabindranath Tagore's valuable and inspiring thoughts on various subjects collected from his writings is of enormous value to readers to understand the insightful observation not only of a great mind but also of one of the most towering renaissance figures of 19th and 20th century India.

True, Tagore was primarily a poet. He won the Nobel Prize in 1913 for his Gitanjali, which was a collection of religious lyrics originally written in Bengali and translated into English by the poet himself. But surely he was more than English by the poet himself. But surely he was more than a poet, a dramatist, writer of stories, novelist, a social, political, religious, aesthetic thinker, innovator in education, rural reconstruction and a champion of the 'One World' idea.

The range and thrust of his thoughts culled from his reflective writing on society, religion, culture, civilisation, asesthetics, education, rural, welfare, nationalism, internationalism, race relations etc. are of great value even today. Some of his single phrases and insights are capable of infinite annotations. He is, of course, less a philosopher and more a visionary whose life-long quest for the ideal is expressed in the following words from "My Reminiscences" (1917):

When the voice of the silent touches my words I know him and therefore I know myself

This book of quotes has a number of quotations on 'The Infinte'(page 132). Tagore says that men must find and feel and represent in all their works the Eternal. If it is said that such pursuit, with an eye fixed on the Eternal, involves what Toynbee called etherealisation, it is not always true. The quote on 'Infinite Reality' given in page 58 of this book rather informs Tagore's deep concern for pure truth of love or goodness from other than the human point of view:

We touch the infinite reality immediately within us only when we perceive the pure truth of love or goodness, not through the explanation of theologians, not through the erudite discussion to ethical doctrines.

Till today he is the most widely read Indian writer in India and abroad not just as a poet but also as a socio- political thinker, educationist, phosphor and an aesthetician of great merit. Tagore was criticised in the West in his lifetime for denunciating nationalism, which did not find favour in the West or in Japan. But today there is a growing interest in him and people want to understand his views on nationalism. Now the realisation has come that Togore's dream of a world order, not broken up into fragment by narrow domestic walls, ought to be made a reality for peace in this universe. The world all over is now referring to his intense concern for various issues of the contemporary world, particularly the unity of the universe and the uniqueness of man and the relationship between them.

While reading these quotes one comes to realize that Tagore's prose has an intimate relationship with poetry. His prose is capable of capturing those fine shades of emotion we normally look for in lyrice: its range stretches from the most abstruse to the intensely lyrical. This book of quotes is full of such lyrical prose. Just to give one example, while presenting his views on modernity in literature (page 91) language, makes use of an expression which is lyrical in its intensity:

True modernism is freedom of the mind, not slavery of taste. It is independence of thought and action, not tutelage under European school masters. It is science, but not its wrong application in life. This book of quotes has a collection of 174 inspiring thoughts of Tagore related with various topics which refer to his artistic activities and other social commitments. His ideas can always be our companion in the search for values, in all that contributes to civisation. His creative gift will outlast empires, the whirligig of politics and public taste. His thoughts have the potentiality to guide us as a narrative of faith in man and hope for the triumph of the individual Once he wrote, 'As I look around I see the crumbling ruins of a proud civilisation strewn like a vast heap of futility,' and yet he thought it was 'grievous sin' to lose faith in man. 'A Day will come when unvanquished man will retrace his path of conquest, despite all barriers, to win back his lost human heritage'

Indra Nath choudhuri

CONTENTS

 

Introduction	XV
Acquisition and enjoyment	1
Aesthetics	1
Animal and man	1
A personal being	2
Aphorism	3
Art	3
Art and life	5
Artists and scientists	5
Barbarism	6
Beauty	6
Beauty and freedom	9
Beauty and truth	10
Bondage and liberation	11
Caste	11
Children	12
Christian	12
Civilization	13
Commercialism	15
Common fellowship	15
Courtesy	16
Creation	16
Creative impulse	18
Crucible of reason	19
Dejection	19
Delight	19
Dharma	21
Different truths	22
Discord	23
Divide and rule	23
Dream	24
East and West	24
Education	32
Emotions	37
Emotional forces	38
English literature	38
Enlightenment	39
Europe	39
Everlasting love	40
Excellence	41
Eyes of the soul	41
Faith in man	42
Fish	42
Fishing	43
Freedom	44
Gentleman	50
Good	50
Good and bad	50
Greed	51
Growth	52
Happiness	52
Higher self	52
His own language	53
Home and barriers	53
Horse-power and spirit-power	53
Humanity	54
Ideals	55
Ideals of perfection	56
Ideas	56
Imagination	56
Imperfection	57
India	57
India's unity	58
Infinite reality	58
Isolation	59
Joy and things	59
Knowledge	60
Learning a language	60
Leisure	60
Life	61
Life and death	61
Life and goodness	62
Life, the rebel	62
Literature	63
Love	63
Man	67
Man's religion	75
Man and God	75
Man and nature	76
Man and women	77
Mentorship	77
Mind	78
Miscellaneous	78
Modernism	91
Modern civilization	92
Moral and immoral	92
Music	93
Mutual menace	94
Nationalism	94
Nature	97
Nature and human	97
Othello and Manu	98
Our soul	98
Pain and joy	99
Paradise	99
Paradise of perfection	100
Peace and conflict	100
Pessimism	100
Poetry	101
Poetry and arts	101
Poets and artists	102
Poverty and wealth	102
Primitive man	102
Progress	103
Prosody of the stars	104
Puritanism	104
Quotes from Fireflies and Stray Birds	105
Real knowledge	112
Realism and reality	112
Realization	114
Relation to beauty	114
Relationship	115
Religion	115
Religion and Sectarianism	120
Renunciation	121
Revolution	121
Rhythm	122
Science	122
Science and religion	123
Sex and aesthetics	125
Simplicity	125
Sin	126
Socialized tyranny	126
Soul and poetry	127
Spirit of progress	128
Spirit dyspepsia	128
Success	128
Surface of life	129
Survival of the fittest	129
The artist	129
The best teaching	129
The demon of barbarity	130
The forest Asramas	130
The golden key	130
The highest truth	131
The imperialists	131
The infinite	131
The infinite being	132
The kingdom of wisdom and love	133
The light	134
The limit	135
The mind	135
The miracle world	136
The modern age	136
The pen and the brush	141
The personal man	141
The poet and the modern world	141
The politicians	142
The present age	143
The prophet	144
The reality	145
The search for God	145
The shrinking man	145
The sterile sand	146
The truth of life	146
The universe	146
The world	147
The world's reality	147
This and that	148
Tradition	148
Truth	149
Truth and beauty	154
Tyranny	154
Unity	155
Universal and unique	155
Universal man	155
Universal mind	157
Unreason	157
War and peace	158
Warehouse security	159
Western civilization	159
Wholeness of being	161
Within and without	161
Women	162

 

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