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Named source · 1916

Stray Birds Quotes by Rabindranath Tagore: Context & Meanings

2 quotations linked to Stray Birds by or associated with Rabindranath Tagore, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

About this source

1916 collection of brief aphoristic poems translated by Tagore

Topics and ideas

Growth, beauty, love, self-worth, freedom, nature, rest, identity and compact philosophical observation.

English wording

Self-translation

Rabindranath Tagore — Author and self-translator · Bengali → English

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Represented passages

2 quotations with source context and meaning

Source identified1
“MAN is a born child, his power is the power of growth.”

Tagore defines human power through continued capacity to develop, using childhood as an image of openness to change rather than completed maturity.

Source note: Stray Birds, aphorism 25, translated by Tagore from Bengali; Project Gutenberg #6524. The compact line is poetic-philosophical and is not presented as a modern developmental-psychology claim.

Source identified2
“O BEAUTY, find thyself in love, not in the flattery of thy mirror.”

Beauty is located in relationship and love rather than self-admiring reflection, pushing worth away from flattering appearance alone and toward a less self-enclosed measure.

Source note: Stray Birds, aphorism 28; Project Gutenberg #6524. The personified address to Beauty is poetic language and should not be flattened into a literal rule about appearance or relationships.