“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

Bengali poet and polymath

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter. He lived from 1861 to 1941, and was one of the leading figures of the Bengal Renaissance. He shaped modern Bengali culture through a wide body of work that joined literature, music, and public thought. In 1913, he became the first Indian and the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize in any category, and the first lyricist to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. He also wrote and composed the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.