A Quote by J. R. R. Tolkien

Truly songs and tales fall utterly short of the reality, O Smaug the Chiefest and greatest of Calamities.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Quote Topics

Calamities Fall Greatest Reality Short Songs Tales Truly Utterly

Quote Author

J. R. R. Tolkien
English - Writer
January 3, 1892 - September 2, 1973

Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs.

Tom Waits

Many people see vulnerability as weakness when it's the only way to truly grow and truly love. Love makes me feel vulnerable. It's like saying, "I'm an open book. Here are my flaws, my strengths, where I fall short, my dreams - and I'm choosing to share them with you."

Betsy Landin

Our federal tax system is, in short, utterly impossible, utterly unjust and completely counterproductive . . . [It] reeks with injustice, and is fundamentally un-American

Ronald Reagan

In short, the foundation of the Kingdom of God is based upon harmony and love, oneness, relationship and union, not upon differences, especially between husband and wife. If one of these two become the cause of divorce, that one will 392 unquestionably fall into great difficulties, will become the victim of formidable calamities and experience deep remorse.

Abdu'l-Bahá

So long as thou are ignorant be not ashamed to learn. Ignorance is the greatest of all infirmities, and when justified, the chiefest of all follies.

Izaak Walton

Smaug certainly looked asleep, almost dead and dark, with scarcely a snore more than a whiff of unseen steam, when Bilbo peeped once more from the entrance. He was just about to step out onto the floor when he caught a sudden thin ray of red from under the drooping lid of Smaug's left eye. He was only pretending to sleep! He was watching the tunnel entrance!

J. R. R. Tolkien

The greatest wisdom is to make the enjoyment of the present the supreme object of life; because that is the only reality, all else being merely the play of thought. On the other hand, such a course might just as well be called the greatest folly: for that which in the next moment exists no more, and vanishes utterly, like a dream, can never be worth a serious effort.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Patience is the chiefest fruit of study; a man that strives to make himself different from other men by much reading gains this chiefest good, that in all fortunes he hath something to entertain and comfort himself withal.

John Selden

I've heard that our greatest cross to carry is ourselves - how gravely we fall short.

Anne Lamott

Reality was utterly coolheaded and utterly lonely.

Haruki Murakami

I have a daughter, Hanna, and I never read fairy tales to her. But I did tell her bedtime tales and made up many tales involving 'Gory the Goblin' and other creatures that I borrowed from the Grimms' tales and other tales I knew.

Jack Zipes

You reach for the stars and you work your butt off to achieve your dreams. If you fall short, you fall short, but you say you gave it your best.

Frank Vogel

Ego is certainly there in many of the greatest and most dizzying tales of success - but it's there in some of the greatest stories of failure and self-implosion as well.

Ryan Holiday

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.