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Time & Perspective Quote by Rabindranath Tagore

"Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf"

About this Quote

A whole philosophy of living is smuggled into that single word: lightly. Tagore isn’t selling escapism or a scented-candle calm; he’s pushing back against the modern urge to clamp down on time, to treat life as a project to be optimized, archived, and proven. The image does its work because it’s precarious. Dew doesn’t “own” the leaf; it perches, trembles, catches the morning light, then disappears. That vanishing isn’t a tragedy in the metaphor - it’s the point.

“Dance on the edges of Time” frames existence as choreography rather than conquest. Edges imply limits: you can’t step outside time, you can only move with awareness of its drop-off. The dance suggests grace under constraint, a kind of disciplined ease. Tagore’s intent is less “be carefree” than “stop gripping.” The subtext is a critique of ambition when it hardens into possession - of days, of outcomes, of the self.

Context sharpens the stakes. Writing out of late-colonial Bengal, Tagore watched industrial modernity and imperial bureaucracy impose clocks, schedules, and a transactional worldview on lived experience. His work often answers that pressure with a spiritual aesthetic: not withdrawal from the world, but a gentler mode of inhabiting it, rooted in nature and attention. Dew is almost aggressively modest: not a monument, not a legacy, just a brief glint. The line argues that meaning doesn’t require permanence; it can be as real as a moment that refuses to be pinned down.

Quote Details

TopicLive in the Moment
Source
Verified source: The Gardener (Rabindranath Tagore, 1915)
Text match: 100.00%   Provider: Cross-Reference
Evidence:
Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf. (Poem 45 ("To the guests that must go..."); p. 81 in the Wikisource djvu scan (Page:The_Gardener.djvu/95)). This line appears in Rabindranath Tagore’s own translated work, in the English-language book/collection "The Gardener" as part of poem/section 45, often titled/incipited "To the guests that must go bid God's speed...". The Wikisource page is a scan-backed transcription showing the line on the printed page (p. 81 in that edition’s pagination). Many quote sites incorrectly cite other works (e.g., "Stray Birds"), but the primary-text match for this exact wording is in "The Gardener" poem 45.
Other candidates (1)
7 Lessons for Living from the Dying (Dr. Karen Wyatt, 2020) compilation95.0%
... Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf.” Rabindranath Tagore If you spend...
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Tagore, Rabindranath. (2026, February 9). Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/let-your-life-lightly-dance-on-the-edges-of-time-9731/

Chicago Style
Tagore, Rabindranath. "Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf." FixQuotes. February 9, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/let-your-life-lightly-dance-on-the-edges-of-time-9731/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf." FixQuotes, 9 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/let-your-life-lightly-dance-on-the-edges-of-time-9731/. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (May 6, 1861 - August 7, 1941) was a Poet from India.

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