The Home and the World QUOTES

1 " Life is indefinite--a bundle of contradictions. We men, with our ideas, strive to give it a particular shape by melting it into a particular mould--into the definiteness of success. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

2 " His love for me seemed to overflow my limits by its flood of wealth and service. But my necessity was more for giving than foe receiving; for love is a vagabond, who can make his flowers bloom in the wayside dust, better than in the crystal jars kept in the drawing-room. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

3 " The time has come when I must divest Bimala of all the ideal decorations with which I decked her. It was owing to my own weakness that I indulged in such idolatry. I was too greedy. I created an angel of Bimala, in order to exaggerate my own enjoyment. But Bimala is what she is. It is preposterous to expect that she should assume the role of an angel for my pleasure. The Creator is under no obligation to supply me with angels, just because I have an avidity for imaginary perfection. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

4 " When at last we have to die it will be time enough to get cold.
While we are on fire let us seethe and boil. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

5 " I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet reality. Merely going on with your household duties, living your life in the world of household conventions and the drudgery of household tasks - you were not made for that! If we meet, and recognize each other, in the real world, then only will our love be true. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

6 " Now that a full flood of music has swept over our country, let Nikhil practise his scales, while we rouse the land with our cracked voices[.] "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

7 " We women are weak," replied Bimala. "So I suppose we must join in the conspiracy of the weak."
"Women weak!" I exclaimed with a laugh. "Men belaud you as delicate and fragile, so as to delude you into thinking yourselves weak. But it is you women who are strong. Men make a great outward show of their so-called freedom, but those who know their inner minds are aware of their bondage. They have
manufactured scriptures with their own hands to bind themselves; with their very idealism they have made golden fetters of women to wind round their body and mind. If men had not that extraordinary faculty of entangling themselves in meshes of their own contriving, nothing could have kept them bound. But as for
you women, you have desired to conceive reality with body and soul. You have given birth to reality. You have suckled reality at your breasts. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

8 " To try to give our infatuation a higher place than Truth is a sign of inherent slavishness. Where our minds are free we find ourselves lost. Our moribund vitality must have for its rider either some fantasy, or someone in authority, or a sanction from the pundits, in order to make it move. So long as we are
impervious to truth and have to be moved by some hypnotic stimulus, we must know that we lack the capacity for self- government. Whatever may be our condition, we shall either need some imaginary ghost or some actual medicine-man to terrorize over us. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

9 " এর কিছুদিন পরেই মাস্টারমশায় পঞ্চুকে আমার কাছে নিয়ে এসে উপস্থিত। ব্যাপার কী?

ওদের জমিদার হরিশ কুণ্ডু পঞ্চুকে এক-শো টাকা জরিমানা করেছে।

কেন, ওর অপরাধ কী?

ও বিলিতি কাপড় বেচেছে। ও জমিদারকে গিয়ে হাতে পায়ে ধরে বললে, পরের কাছে ধার-করা টাকায় কাপড় কখানা কিনেছে, এইগুলো বিক্রি হয়ে গেলেই ও এমন কাজ আর কখনো করবে না। জমিদার বললে, সে হচ্ছে না, আমার সামনে কাপড়গুলো পুড়িয়ে ফেল্‌, তবে ছাড়া পাবি। ও থাকতে না পেরে হঠাৎ বলে ফেললে, আমার তো সে সামর্থ্য নেই, আমি গরিব ; আপনার যথেষ্ট আছে, আপনি দাম দিয়ে কিনে নিয়ে পুড়িয়ে ফেলুন। শুনে জমিদার লাল হয়ে উঠে বললে, হারামজাদা, কথা কইতে শিখেছ বটে— লাগাও জুতি। এই বলে এক চোট অপমান তো হয়েই গেল, তার পরে এক-শো টাকা জরিমানা।– এরাই সন্দীপের পিছনে পিছনে চীৎকার করে বেড়ায়, বন্দেমাতরং! এরা দেশের সেবক! "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

10 " Even he whose near ones have all died, one by one, is not alone-companionship comes for him from behind the screen of death. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

11 " My husband would not give me an opportunity for worship. That was his greatness. They are cowards who claim absolute devotion from their wives as their right; that is a humiliation for both. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

12 " for we women are not only the deities of the household fire, but the flame of the soul itself. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

13 " I am willing to serve my country, but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

14 " Men can only think. Women have a way of understanding without thinking. Woman was created out of God's own fancy. Man, He had to hammer into shape. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

15 " that which is eternal within the moment only becomes shallow if spread out in time. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

16 " Today I feel that I shall win through. I have come to the gateway of the simple; I am now content to see things as they are. I have gained freedom myself; I shall allow freedom to others. In my work will be my salvation. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

17 " to tyrannize for the country is to tyrannize over the country "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

18 " If one had to fill in, little by little, the gap between day and night, it would take an eternity to do it. But the sun rises and the darkness is dispelled- a moment is sufficient to overcome an infinite distance. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

19 " The greedy man who is fond of his fish stew has no compunction in cutting up the fish according to his need. But the man who loves the fish wants to enjoy it in the water; and if that is impossible he waits on the bank; and even if he comes back home without a sight of it he has the consolation of knowing that the fish is all right. Perfect gain is the best of all; but if that is impossible, then the next best gain is perfect losing. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World

20 " Woman knows man well enough where he is weak, but she is quite unable to fathom him where he is strong. The fact is that man is as much a mystery to woman as woman is to man. If that were not so, the separation of the sexes would only have been a waste of Nature's energy. "

― Rabindranath Tagore , The Home and the World