J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

458 Sourced Quotes

It is wisdom to recognize necessity when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.

J. R. R. Tolkien
For so sworn good or evil an oath may not be broken and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world's end.

J. R. R. Tolkien
Hammer and tongs! I am so torn between rage and joy, that if I do not burst, it will be a marvel!

J. R. R. Tolkien
Supernatural is a dangerous and difficult word in any of its senses, looser or stricter. But to fairies it can hardly be applied, unless super is taken merely as a superlative prefix. For it is man who is, in contrast to fairies, supernatural; whereas they are natural, far more natural than he. Such is their doom.

J. R. R. Tolkien
If you find that not many of the things you asked for have come, and not perhaps quite so many as sometimes, remember that this Christmas all over the world there are a terrible number of poor and starving people.

J. R. R. Tolkien
It was an evil doom that set her in his path. For she is a fair maiden, fairest lady of a house of queens. And yet I know not how I should speak of her. When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel. (Aragorn talking of Eowyn, in the Houses of Healing)

J. R. R. Tolkien
Their 'magic' is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations.

J. R. R. Tolkien
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

J. R. R. Tolkien
It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.

J. R. R. Tolkien
No, my heart will not yet despair. Gandalf fell and has returned and is with us. We may stand, if only on one leg, or at least be left still upon our knees.

J. R. R. Tolkien
Dead men are not friends to living men, and give them no gifts. (Ghan-buri-Ghan, of allies during war)

J. R. R. Tolkien
The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels rather than makes explicit what his theme portends; who presents it incarnate in the world of history and geography, as our poet has done. Its defender is thus at a disadvantage: unless he is careful, and speaks in parables, he will kill what he is studying by vivisection, and he will be left with a formal or mechanical allegory, and what is more, probably with one that will not work. For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected.

J. R. R. Tolkien
His face was sad and stern because of the doom that was laid on him, and yet hope dwelt ever in the depths of his heart, from which mirth would arise at times like a spring from a rock.

J. R. R. Tolkien
This is the ending. Now not day only shall be beloved, but night too shall be beautiful and blessed and all its fear pass away.

J. R. R. Tolkien
Oh! That was poetry!" said Pippin. "Do you really mean to start before the break of day?

J. R. R. Tolkien
Have you thought of an ending?" "Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant." "Oh, that won't do! Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?" "It will do well, if it ever came to that." "Ah! And where will they live? That's what I often wonder.

J. R. R. Tolkien
Their horses were of great stature, strong and clean-limbed; their gray coats glistened, their long tails flowed in the wind, their manes were braided on their proud necks.

J. R. R. Tolkien
You will notice already that Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers.

J. R. R. Tolkien
And there was Frodo, pale and worn, and yet himself again; and in his eyes there was peace now, neither strain of will, nor madness, nor any fear. His burden was taken away.

J. R. R. Tolkien
At bidding of a Will, to which we bend
(and must), but only dimly apprehend,
great processes march on, as Time unrolls
from dark beginnings to uncertain goals;
and as on page o'er-written without clue,
with script and limning packed of various hue,
an endless multitude of forms appear,
some grim, some frail, some beautiful, some queer,
each alien, except as kin from one
remote Origo, gnat, man, stone, and sun.

J. R. R. Tolkien
There was a little corner of his mind that was still his own, and light came through it, as though a chink in the dark: light out of the past. It was actually pleasant, I think, to hear a kindly voice agin, bringing up memories of wind, and trees, and sun on the grass, and such forgotten things.

J. R. R. Tolkien
We are being at once wisely aware of our own frivolity if we avoid hitting and whacking and prefer 'striking' and 'smiting'; talk and chat and prefer 'speech' and 'discourse'; well-bred, brilliant, or polite noblemen (visions of snobbery columns in the Press, and fat men on the Riviera) and prefer the 'worthy, brave and courteous men' of long ago.

J. R. R. Tolkien
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

J. R. R. Tolkien
Farewell, and may the blessing of Elves and Men and all Free Folk go with you. May the stars shine upon your faces!

J. R. R. Tolkien
Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo, a star shines on the hour of our meeting.

J. R. R. Tolkien
Farewell," they cried, "Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" That is the polite thing to say among eagles. "May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.

J. R. R. Tolkien
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

J. R. R. Tolkien
I hope I never smell the smell of apples again!" said Fili. "My tub was full of ut. To smell apples everlastingly when you can scarcely move and are cold and sick with hunger is maddening. I could eat anything in the wide world now for hours on end - but not an apple!

J. R. R. Tolkien
My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … 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.

J. R. R. Tolkien
My dear Frodo!' exclaimed Gandalf. 'Hobbits really are amazing creatures, as I have said before. You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you at a pinch.

J. R. R. Tolkien