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
On each race is laid the duty to keep alight its own lamp of mind as its part in the illumination of the world. To break the lamp of any people into deprive it of its rightful place in the world festival.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Each culture has a responsibility to share its unique knowledge and perspective with the world.
Rabindranath Tagore's quote highlights the importance of cultural integrity and contribution. By emphasizing the metaphor of a 'lamp', he suggests that each race or culture must nurture its own knowledge and wisdom, illuminating the broader world stage with its distinct insights and beliefs. To extinguish one culture's lamp would deprive the world of valuable diversity and understanding.
Themes
CultureKnowledgeDiversityIlluminationResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
During a cultural festival, one might quote Tagore to emphasize the importance of sharing diverse traditions.
More from Rabindranath Tagore
All quotes →Music fills the infinite between two souls. This has been muffled by the mist of our daily habits.
Rabindranath TagoreRead
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.
Rabindranath TagoreRead
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.
Rabindranath TagoreRead
If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.
Rabindranath TagoreRead
To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.
Rabindranath TagoreRead
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