WORDS TO SPEND A MOMENT WITH

A thought can open a window.

220 short quotes to explore. Choose a theme or tradition, and see what speaks to you.

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“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Circles ↗

Quotations and short excerpts, with links to their sources. Translations differ; adaptations are labelled.

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Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Circles

Once we dreamt that we were strangers. We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 9 · poem

Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart like the evening among the silent trees.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 10 · poem

Listen, my heart, to the whispers of the world with which it makes love to you.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 13 · poem

I sit at my window this morning where the world like a passer-by stops for a moment, nods to me and goes.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 16 · poem

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

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 6

Life finds its wealth by the claims of the world, and its worth by the claims of love.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 33 · poem

My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 55 · poem

Thank the flame for its light, but do not forget the lampholder standing in the shade with constancy of patience.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 64 · poem

Tiny grass, your steps are small, but you possess the earth under your tread.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 65 · poem

Your voice, my friend, wanders in my heart, like the muffled sound of the sea among these listening pines.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 80 · poem

He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 83 · poem

Do not linger to gather flowers to keep them, but walk on, for flowers will keep themselves blooming all your way.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 102 · poem

Rest belongs to the work as the eyelids to the eyes.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 24

I have dipped the vessel of my heart into this silent hour; it has filled with love.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 170 · poem

I came to your shore as a stranger, I lived in your house as a guest, I leave your door as a friend, my earth.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 272 · poem

Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 292 · poem

The bird wishes it were a cloud. The cloud wishes it were a bird.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 35

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

Kahlil Gibran · The Prophet · excerpt

And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

Kahlil Gibran · The Prophet · excerpt

We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 42

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

Do the thing, and you shall have the power…

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden · excerpt

The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 48

Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden · excerpt

A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden · excerpt

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden · excerpt

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden · excerpt

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden · excerpt

If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden · excerpt

Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 56

We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 75

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

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 82

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

Be still, my heart, these great trees are prayers.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 95

My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

The bird thinks it is an act of kindness to give the fish a lift in the air.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 123

Our own thought sounds new and larger from his mouth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

A new person is to me a great event, and hinders me from sleep.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 128

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

Kahlil Gibran · The Prophet · excerpt

The mist, like love, plays upon the heart of the hills and brings out surprises of beauty.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 74 · poem

If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 130

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays · excerpt

The roots below the earth claim no rewards for making the branches fruitful.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 134

The trembling leaves of this tree touch my heart like the fingers of an infant child.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 262 · poem

By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 154

The night opens the flowers in secret and allows the day to get thanks.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 157

Thoughts pass in my mind like flocks of ducks in the sky. I hear the voice of their wings.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 165

It is the little things that I leave behind for my loved ones — great things are for everyone.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 178

A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 193

Life has become richer by the love that has been lost.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 223

Kicks only raise dust and not crops from the earth.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 228

Set bird's wings with gold and it will never again soar in the sky.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 231

Let not the sword-blade mock its handle for being blunt.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 250

The false can never grow into truth by growing in power.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 258

The storm of the last night has crowned this morning with golden peace.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 294

Bees sip honey from flowers and hum their thanks when they leave.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 127

The eyes are not proud of their sight but of their eyeglasses.

Rabindranath Tagore · Stray Birds · 256