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Spartan Surfers

1861-1941

Rabindranath Tagore

Bengali poet, composer and teacher, and in 1913 the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He rendered his own short poems into English in Gitanjali and Stray Birds.

10 sourced lines

Every line we carry

Each one links to its source, what it means, and the shirt in any of our looks.

  1. If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.

    Grieving too long over what is gone blinds you to what has arrived. Night has its own light. When something ends, look up.

    Stray Birds 6 (1916), Rabindranath Tagore, 1916

  2. Not hammerstrokes, but the dance of the water sings the pebbles into perfection.

    Smooth stones are made by endless gentle motion, not by force. People and work are shaped the same way. Patience and rhythm finish what violence cannot.

    Stray Birds 126 (1916), Rabindranath Tagore, 1916

  3. The world kissed my soul with its pain, asking for songs in return.

    Suffering, in Tagore's picture, is the world reaching for us and waiting for a reply. The reply he chooses is to make something. Turn your hurt into work worth sharing.

    Stray Birds 167 (1916), Rabindranath Tagore, 1916

  4. Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves.

    Both seasons have their beauty: full bloom and graceful falling. Tagore asks for a life lived brightly and an ending met with color, not dread. Live in full and let go well.

    Stray Birds 82 (1916), Rabindranath Tagore, 1916

  5. A mind all logic is like a knife all blade.

    Pure logic without warmth or judgment cuts the person who wields it. Reason needs a handle of feeling and sense. Think sharply, but keep something to hold on by.

    Stray Birds 193 (1916), Rabindranath Tagore, 1916

  6. The stillness of the sea stirs in waves.

    Even the sea's calm is never dead; it moves in waves. Rest and work are not opposites in Tagore's line. Real stillness is alive.

    Stray Birds 132 (1916), Rabindranath Tagore, 1916

  7. The stream of truth flows through its channels of mistakes.

    We reach the truth by being wrong and correcting course. Errors are the riverbed, not the enemy. Don't fear mistakes; keep the water moving.

    Stray Birds 243 (1916), Rabindranath Tagore, 1916

  8. Death belongs to life as birth does.

    A step needs both lifting and setting down; a life needs both its beginning and its end. Death is not outside life but part of its stride. Walk without fearing the step down.

    Stray Birds 268 (1916), Rabindranath Tagore, 1916

  9. Sit still, my heart. Let the world find its way to you.

    Chasing and striving kick up dust that hides what you are looking for. Settle down and things come to you. Some doors open only when you stop pushing.

    Stray Birds 190 (1916), Rabindranath Tagore, 1916

  10. Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.

    Tagore's prayer for his country begins with a people who are unafraid and unbowed. It is a picture of freedom from the inside out. Carry yourself that way and help build places where others can.

    Gitanjali 35 (1912), Rabindranath Tagore, 1912