Nationalismus

“Neither the colourless vagueness of cosmopolitanism, nor the fierce self-idolatry of nation-worship, is the goal of human history.””

— Rabindranath Tagore

“Yes, this is the logic of the Nation. And itwill never heed the voice of truth and goodness.It will go on in its ring-dance of moral corruption,linking steel unto steel, and machine untomachine; trampling under its tread all the sweetflowers of simple faith and the living ideals ofman.””

— Rabindranath Tagore

“Because each nation has its own history of thieving and lies and broken faith, therefore there can only flourish international suspicion and jealousy, and international moral shame becomes anæmic to a degree of ludicrousness. The nation's bagpipe of righteous indignation has so often changed its tune according to the variation of time and to the altered groupings of the alliances of diplomacy, that it can be enjoyed with amusement as the variety performance of the political music hall.””

— Rabindranath Tagore

“But now, where the spirit of the Western nationalism prevails, the whole people is being taught from boyhood to foster hatreds and ambitions by all kinds of means”

— Rabindranath Tagore

“nationalism is a cruel epidemic of evil that is sweeping over the human world of the present age,””

— Rabindranath Tagore

“Once again I draw your attention to the difficulties India has had to encounter and her struggle to overcome them. Her problem was the problem of the world in miniature. India is too vast in its area and too diverse in its races. It is many countries packed in one geographical receptacle. It is just the opposite of what Europe truly is, namely, one country made into many. Thus Europe in its culture and growth has had the advantage of the strength of the many as well as the strength of the one. India, on the contrary, being naturally many, yet adventitiously one, has all along suffered from the looseness of its diversity and the feebleness of its unity. A true unity is like a round globe, it rolls on, carrying its burden easily; but diversity is a many-cornered thing which has to be dragged and pushed with all force. Be it said to the credit of India that this diversity was not her own creation; she has had to accept it as a fact from the beginning of her history. In America and Australia, Europe has simplified her problem by almost exterminating the original population. Even in the present age this spirit of extermination is making itself manifest, in the inhospitable shutting out of aliens, by those who themselves were aliens in the lands they now occupy. But India tolerated difference of races from the first, and that spirit of toleration has acted all through her history. Her caste system is the outcome of this spirit of toleration. For India has all along been trying experiments in evolving a social unity within which all the different peoples could be held together, while fully enjoying the freedom of maintaining their own differences. The tie has been as loose as possible, yet as close as the circumstances permitted. This has produced something like a United States of a social federation, whose common name is Hinduism. India””

— Rabindranath Tagore

“Be not ashamed, my brothers, to stand before the proud and the powerful With your white robe of simpleness. Let your crown be of humility, your freedom the freedom of the soul. Build God's throne daily upon the ample bareness of your poverty And know that what is huge is not great and pride is not everlasting.””

— Rabindranath Tagore

“Their real freedom is not within the boundaries of security, but in the highroad of adventures, full of the risk of new experiences””

— Rabindranath Tagore

“Turn a tree into a log and it will burn for you, but it will never bear living flowers and fruit.””

— Rabindranath Tagore