Top 791 Quotes & Sayings by J. R. R. Tolkien - Page 2

A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.

For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green.

No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.

Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

The most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

There is a place called ‘heaven’ where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet.

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!

There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.

I am not a 'democrat' only because 'humility' and equality are spiritual principles corrupted by the attempt to mechanize and formalize them, with the result that we get not universal smallness and humility, but universal greatness and pride, till some Orc gets hold of a ring of power--and then we get and are getting slavery.

May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.

Little by little, one travels far

American English is essentially English after having been wiped off with a dirty sponge.

A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.

A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

There are truths, that are beyond us, transcendent truths, about beauty, truth, honor, etc. There are truths that man knows exist, but they cannot be seen - they are immaterial, but no less real, to us. It is only through the language of myth that we can speak of these truths.

War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.

Do not spoil the wonder with haste!

The Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story — and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.

A story must be told or there'll be no story, yet it is the untold stories that are most moving.

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep...that have taken hold.

Deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.

We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.

He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.

It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.

We may indeed in counsel point to the higher road, but we cannot compel any free creature to walk upon it. That leadeth to tyranny, which disfigureth good and maketh it seem hateful.

The world is not in your books and maps, it's out there.

You can only come to the morning through the shadows.

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

If you do not believe in a personal God, the question: 'What is the purpose of life?' is unaskable and unanswerable.

For we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.

For myself, I find I become less cynical rather than more--remembering my own sins and follies; and realize that men's hearts are not often as bad as their acts, and very seldom as bad as their words.

His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.

If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up somewhere else. Not all those who wander are lost.

There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go.

Often does hatred hurt itself.

After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth'.

Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.

It's a dangerous business, going out your door.

Not everyone who wanders is lost.

You have to understand the good in things, to detect the real evil.

Pippin: I didn't think it would end this way. Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path... One that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass... And then you see it. Pippin: What? Gandalf?... See what? Gandalf: White shores... and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise. Pippin: Well, that isn't so bad. Gandalf: No... No it isn't.

Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

I warn you, if you bore me, I shall take my revenge.

History often resembles myth, because they are both ultimately of the same stuff.

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.

Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?

I am dreading the publication, for it will be impossible not to mind what is said. I have exposed my heart to be shot at.

Courage will now be your best defence against the storm that is at hand-—that and such hope as I bring.

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament … There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth.

All have their worth and each contributes to the worth of the others.

The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.

Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?

The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.

End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path... One that we all must take.

I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.

The treacherous are ever distrustful.