Short Stories from Rabindranath Tagore Quotes

“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from 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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“One clings desperately to some vain hope, till a day comes when it has sucked the heart dry and then it 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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“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. But”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“Tears came to my eyes. I forgot that he was a poor Cabuli fruit-seller, while I was—. But no, what was I more than he? He also was a father.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“In the depth of night when no one is awake to arrest me—me, the least of all men—I will silently creep to my mother’s arms and fall asleep, and may I never wake again!”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“Vanity is not like a horse or an elephant requiring expensive fodder.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“It came to be the natural rule of life with him, that no one should add to the burden of the world, but that each should try to lighten it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“The lad himself becomes painfully self-conscious. When he talks with elderly people he is either unduly forward, or else so unduly shy that he appears ashamed of his very existence.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“no one should add to the burden of the world, but that each should try to lighten it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“But the child's faith never admits defeat, and it would snatch at the mantle of death itself to turn him back.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“At last, when no one else came, Mother Sleep soothed with her soft caresses the wounded heart of the motherless lad. Nilkanta”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“black eyes need no translating; the mind itself throws a shadow upon them. In them thought opens or shuts, shines forth or goes out in darkness, hangs steadfast like the setting moon or like the swift and restless lightning illumines all quarters of the sky. They who from birth have had no other speech than the trembling of their lips learn a language of the eyes, endless in expression, deep as the sea, clear as the heavens, wherein play dawn and sunset, light and shadow. The”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“Perhaps the scenes of travel conjure themselves up before me and pass and repass in my imagination all the more vividly, because I lead such a vegetable existence that a call to travel would fall upon me like a thunder-bolt.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“Now losers have this advantage, that though their own folk disapprove of them they are generally popular with everyone else. Having no work to chain them, they became public property. Just”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“Alas, for our foolish human nature! Its fond mistakes are persistent. The dictates of reason take a long time to assert their sway.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“Yet it is at this very age when, in his heart of hearts, a young lad most craves for recognition and love; and he becomes the devoted slave of any one who shows him consideration. But none dare openly love him, for that would be regarded as undue indulgence and therefore bad for the boy. So, what with scolding and chiding, he becomes very much like a stray dog that has lost his master.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“The marriage-pipes sounded, and the mild autumn sun streamed round us. But Rahmun sat in the little Calcutta lane, and saw before him the barren mountains of Afghanistan. I took out a bank-note and gave it to him, saying: "Go back to your own daughter, Rahmun, in your own country, and may the happiness of your meeting bring good fortune to my child!" Having made this present, I had to curtail some of the festivities. I could not have the electric lights I had intended, nor the military band, and the ladies of the house were despondent at it. But to me the wedding-feast was all the brighter for the thought that in a distant land a long-lost father met again with his only child.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“In this world of human affairs there is no worse nuisance than a boy at the age of fourteen. He is neither ornamental nor useful. It is impossible to shower affection on him as on a little boy; and he is always getting in the way. If he talks with a childish lisp he is called a baby, and if he answers in a grown-up way he is called impertinent. In fact any talk at all from him is resented. Then he is at the unattractive, growing age. He grows out of his clothes with indecent haste; his voice grows hoarse and breaks and quavers; his face grows suddenly angular and unsightly. It is easy to excuse the shortcomings of early childhood, but it is hard to tolerate even unavoidable lapses in a boy of fourteen.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“Raicharan was twelve years old when he came as a servant to his master's house. He belonged to the same caste as his master and was given his master's little son to nurse. As time went on the boy left Raicharan's arms to go to school. From school he went on to college, and after college he entered the judicial service. Always, until he married, Raicharan was his sole attendant.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“When the Goddess of Fortune deserts a house, she usually leaves some of her burdens behind, and this ancient family was still encumbered with its host of dependents, though its own shelter was nearly crumbling to dust. These parasites take it to be an insult if they are asked to do any service. They get head-aches at the least touch of the kitchen smoke. They are visited with sudden rheumatism the moment they are asked to run errands.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“Women lose their delicacy and refinement, when they are compelled night and day to haggle with their destiny over things pitifully small, and for this they are blamed by those whom their toil supports.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“Haralal explained why the money came to his house at night, like birds to their nest, to be scattered next morning.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“While Ratan was awaiting her call, the postmaster was awaiting a reply to his application.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“Amongst men of the Cabuliwallah’s class, however, it is well known that the words father-in-law’s house have a double meaning. It is a euphemism for jail, the place where we are well cared for, at no expense to ourselves. In this sense would the sturdy pedlar take my daughter’s question. ‘Oh,’ he would say, shaking his fist at an invisible policeman, ‘I will thrash my father-in-law!”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“Now nearly every small Bengali maiden had heard long ago about her father-in-law’s house; but we were a little new-fangled, and had kept these things from our child, so that Mini at this question must have been a trifle bewildered. But she would not show it, and with ready tact replied: ‘Are you going there?”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

“a silent cry of the inmost heart for the mother, like the lowing of a calf in the twilight,—this”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore

“The cramped atmosphere of neglect oppressed Phatik so much that he felt that he could hardly breathe.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stories from Tagore