Parenting & Family Quote by Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore frames childhood as evidence, not innocence: a divine vote of confidence cast again and again in a species that keeps giving reasons to withdraw it. The line works because it smuggles a theological claim into a humane observation. A baby is not just a private joy; it’s a public argument against despair. “Not yet discouraged” lands with a quiet sting, implying God has every right to be discouraged by “man” - not by fate, not by nature, but by our choices. Hope here is conditional and exhausted, the way hope feels after wars, famines, and the churn of modernity that Tagore watched tighten across colonial India.

The subtext is Tagore’s trademark: spiritual, yes, but allergic to dogma. He rarely treats God as a distant judge; God is a moral atmosphere, a measure of our capacity to renew ourselves. By choosing “message,” Tagore makes the child a messenger rather than a miracle. The child doesn’t fix humanity; it signals that the story isn’t over, that there remains a future worth addressing.

Context sharpens the edge. Tagore wrote as a global literary figure amid anti-colonial agitation, World War I, and the mechanized arrogance of empires. In that world, cynicism could pass for sophistication. Tagore counters with a gentler audacity: faith as ongoing experiment. The quote’s intent isn’t to sentimentalize children; it’s to shame adults into earning the optimism they keep receiving, unasked, in every new birth.