Rabindranath Tagore Jayanti 2025: 100 timeless quotes to inspire students

India is celebrating the 164th birth anniversary of one of India's greatest thinkers, poets, and philosophers, Rabindranath Tagore. Here are his 100 quotes to inspire students to dream big

Rabindranath Tagore Jayanti 2025 marks the 164th birth anniversary of one of India’s greatest thinkers, poets, and philosophers—Rabindranath Tagore. Celebrated every year on the 25th day of the Bengali month of Boishakh (which usually falls in April or May), this day honours his remarkable legacy in literature, music, art, and education.

 

Tagore, who was born in 1861, was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his book Gitanjali. He also composed India’s national anthem, “Jana Gana Mana”, and Bangladesh’s anthem, “Amar Shonar Bangla”.

 

More than just a poet, Tagore was a visionary educator and reformer who believed that true learning happens when it is rooted in freedom, creativity, and nature. He founded Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal, to promote holistic education. 

 

 

Even today, his poems, short stories, songs, and ideas continue to inspire students to dream big, think deeply, and live wisely.

Rabindranath Tagore Jayanti 2025: Top 100 quotes to inspire students

• “The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”
• “Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.”
• “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade—it makes the hand bleed that uses it.”
• “The object of education is to give man the unity of truth.”
• “Education means enabling the mind to find out that ultimate truth.”
• “We live in the world when we love it.”
• “The real purpose of education is not to fill your head with facts, but to light a fire of curiosity.”
• “True education must correspond to the surrounding circumstances or it is not a healthy growth.”
• “Education is not a matter of collecting information, but of developing the power of the mind.”
• “Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.”
• “Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.”
• “Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
• “If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.”
• “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
• “Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.”
• “The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous.”
• “Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”
• “Don’t be afraid of the darkness, for the stars are shining only because of it.”
• “What is Art? It is the response of man’s creative soul to the call of the Real.”
• “Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.”
• “You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”
• “Go not to the temple to ask for forgiveness for your sins, but to forgive others.”
• “The burden of self is lightened when I laugh at myself.”

• “The roots below the earth claim no rewards for making the branches fruitful.”
• “Be still, my heart, these great trees are prayers.”
• “Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.”
• “Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it.”
• “Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield but to my own strength.”
• “To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.”
• “He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.”
• “Facts are many, but the truth is one.”
• “Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”
• “Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.”
• “The small wisdom is like water in a glass: clear, transparent, pure. The great wisdom is like the water in the sea: dark, mysterious, impenetrable.”
• “Music fills the infinite between two souls.”
• “Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.”
• “The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.”
• “Age considers; youth ventures.”
• “Power said to the world, ‘You are mine.’ The world kept it prisoner on her throne. Love said to the world, ‘I am thine.’ The world gave it freedom.”
• “Men are cruel, but Man is kind.”
• “Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.”
• “Beauty is truth’s smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.”
• “Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves.”
• “We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.”
• “Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree.”
• “Love does not claim possession but gives freedom.”
• “Silence is a speech of the soul.”
• “The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness.”
• “We gain freedom when we have paid the full price.”
• “Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.”
• “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high... into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”
• “Freedom is not a mere matter of political decision or new constitutions... It is the result of the perfect unfolding of a personality.”
• “The soul of education is the liberation of the soul.”
• “True liberty is not the power to do as we please, but the right to do as we ought.”
• “We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.”
• “He who is too busy doing good has no time to be good.”
• “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
• “Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance.”
• “Life finds its wealth by the claims of the world, and its worth by the claims of love.”
• “Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.”
• “The highest education is that which makes our life in harmony with all existence.”
• “The world speaks to me in colors, my soul answers in music.”
• “You smiled and talked to me of nothing, and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.”
• “What is done in love is done well.”
• “God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man’s hands.”
• “Love adorns itself; it seeks to prove inward joy by outward beauty.”
• “The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified.”
• “A lamp can only light another lamp when it continues to burn its own flame.”
• “Do not say, ‘It is morning,’ and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.”
• “We cross infinity with every step; we meet eternity in every second.”
• “Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.”
• “Let me light my lamp, says the star, and never debate if it will dispel the darkness.”
• “Great is the human who has not lost his childlike heart.”
• “The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail.”
• “If you shut the door to all errors, truth will be shut out.”
• “Gray hairs are signs of wisdom if you hold your tongue, speak and they are but hairs.”
• “The real friendship is like fluorescence, it shines better when everything has darkened.”
• “Let your thoughts come unasked, like the guests who come without invitation.”
• “We gain freedom when we have paid the full price.”
• “Man’s cry is to reach his fullest height, and he is always being helped.”
• “Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.”
• “Art is the means of union among all different kinds of minds, and all nations.”
• “We live in the world when we love it.”
• “Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony which is in the universal being; truth the perfect comprehension of the universal mind.”
• “The artist is the lover of Nature, therefore he is her slave and her master.”
• “Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.”
• “The stream of truth flows through its channels of mistakes.”
• “In Art, man reveals himself and not his objects.”
• “By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.”
• “Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment—it is the ultimate truth.”
• “Love’s gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.”
• “We are kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.”
• “Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.”
• “Man goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own silence of soul.”
• “Love is not a mere impulse; it must contain truth, which is law.”
• “Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity.”
• “Man’s own actions are his destiny’s maker.”
• “The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.”
• “A mind without freedom, a heart without love, a soul without faith—these are the real prisons.”
• “Truth raises against itself the storm that scatters its seeds broadcast.”