Stories from Tagore

by Rabindranath Tagore

These were autumn mornings, the very time of year when kings of old went forth to conquest; and I, never stirring from my little corner in Calcutta, would let my mind wander over the whole world.

In this world of human affairs there is no worse nuisance than a boy at the age of fourteen.

again: "Which Ajatasatru?" When we were young, we understood all sweet things; and we could detect the sweets of a fairy story by an unerring science of our own. We never cared for such useless things as knowledge. We only cared for truth. And our unsophisticated little hearts knew well where the Crystal Palace of Truth lay and how to reach it. But to-day we are expected to write pages of facts, while the truth is simply this: "There was a king."

Truly, if there is a punishment to fit the crime after death, then my tutor will be born

When we express our thought in words, the medium is not found easily. There must be a process of translation, which is often inexact, and then we fall into error.

Alas for our foolish human nature! Its fond mistakes are persistent. The dictates of reason take a long time to assert their own sway. The surest proofs meanwhile are disbelieved. False

hope is clung to with all one's might and main, till a day comes when it has sucked the heart dry and it forcibly breaks through its bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of awakening, and then once again the longing to get back into the maze of the same mistakes.

as the earth consisted of land and water, so human life was made up of eatings and beatings, and that the beatings largely predominated.