Q0213

Rabindranath Tagore

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.
Thinker Rabindranath Tagore
School Humanism
Source Fireflies, no. 191 (1928)
Theme Faith
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Fireflies, no. 191 (1928), within the tradition of Humanism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of faith, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Rabindranath Tagore's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Rabindranath Tagore. (n.d.). Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0213

MLA: Rabindranath Tagore. “Faith is the bird that feels the light….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0213.

Chicago: Rabindranath Tagore. “Faith is the bird that feels the light….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0213.

Same thinker

More from Rabindranath Tagore

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

All quotations by Rabindranath Tagore

Same theme

More on faith

  1. Faith seeking understanding.
  2. Certainty is not attained by imitation, but by tasting (direct experience).
  3. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
  4. Truth does not contradict truth; rather it agrees with it and bears witness to it.
  5. I do not seek to understand so that I may believe, but I believe so that I may understand.

Browse the faith theme