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.
Rabindranath TagoreRead
The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness. Its one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment's hesitation to crush beauty and life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques greed, suggesting it is boundless and indifferent to nature and humanity.
Rabindranath Tagore's quote expresses a deep concern about the insatiable nature of greed, highlighting how it seeks to exploit and devalue both the beauty of the natural world and the dignity of human life. He portrays greed as a force that prioritizes production and consumption over empathy and appreciation for life's richness, emphasizing the harsh consequences of allowing such greed to dictate our actions.
Themes
GreedNatureHuman BeingsConsumptionBeauty
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might quote Tagore to emphasize the need to protect nature from exploitation.
More from Rabindranath Tagore
All quotes →Music fills the infinite between two souls. This has been muffled by the mist of our daily habits.
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True deliverance of man is the deliverance from Avidya i.e. ignorance. It is not in destroying anything that is positive and real, for that cannot be possible, but that which is negative, which obstructs our vision of truth.
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The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
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If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.
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To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.
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