J.r.r. Tolkien Quotes

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.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Roads Go Ever OnRoads go ever ever on,Over rock and under tree,By caves where never sun has shone,By streams that never find the sea;Over snow by winter sown,And through the merry flowers of June,Over grass and over stone,And under mountains in the moon.Roads go ever ever on,Under cloud and under star.Yet feet that wandering have goneTurn at last to home afar.Eyes that fire and sword have seen,And horror in the halls of stoneLook at last on meadows green,And trees and hills they long have known.The Road goes ever on and onDown 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.The Road goes ever on and onDown from the door where it began.Now far ahead the Road has gone,And I must follow, if I can,Pursuing it with weary feet,Until it joins some larger way,Where many paths and errands meet.And whither then? I cannot say.The Road goes ever on and onOut from the door where it began.Now far ahead the Road has gone.Let others follow, if they can!Let them a journey new begin.But I at last with weary feetWill turn towards the lighted inn,My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Your time may come. Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Journey’s endIn western lands beneath the SunThe flowers may rise in Spring,The trees may bud, the waters run,The merry finches sing.Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night,And swaying branches bearThe Elven-stars as jewels whiteAmid their branching hair.Though here at journey's end I lieIn darkness buried deep,Beyond all towers strong and high,Beyond all mountains steep,Above all shadows rides the SunAnd Stars for ever dwell:I will not say the Day is done,Nor bid the Stars farewell.J.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

The treacherous are ever distrustful.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor 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.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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

I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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?

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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!

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Fair speech may hide a foul heart.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

I perceived or thought of the Light of God and in it suspended one small mote (or millions of motes to only one of which was my small mind directed), glittering white because of the individual ray from the Light which both held and lit it...And the ray was the Guardian Angel of the mote: not a thing interposed between God and the creature, but God's very attention itself, personalized...This is a finite parallel to the Infinite. As the love of the Father and Son (who are infinite and equal) is a Person, so the love and attention of the Light to the Mote is a person (that is both with us and in Heaven): finite but divine, i.e. angelic.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Never laugh at live dragons.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

There are many things in the deep waters; and seas and lands may change. And it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

For a while the hobbits continued to talk and think of the past journey and of the perils that lay ahead; but such was the virtue of the land of Rivendell that soon all fear and anxiety was lifted from their minds. The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have any power over the present. Health and hope grew strong in them, and they were content with each good day as it came, taking pleasure in every meal, and in every word and song.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

A King will have his way in his own hall, be it folly or wisdom.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Indeed if fish had fish-lore and Wise-fish, it is probable that the business of anglers would be very little hindered.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Don't trust your head, Samwise, it is not the best part of you.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Then, Éowyn of Rohan, I say to you that you are beautiful. In the valleys of our hills there are flowers fair and bright, and maidens fairer still; but neither flower nor lady have I seen till now in Gondor so lovely, and so sorrowful. It may be that only a few days are left ere darkness falls upon our world, and when it comes I hope to face it steadily; but it would ease my heart, if while the Sun yet shines, I could see you still. For you and I have both passed under the wings of the Shadow, and the same hand drew us back.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's risingI came singing into the sun, sword unsheathing.To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

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

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Being a cheerful hobbit, he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

He never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning;but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope,as long as despair could be postponed.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

Above all shadows rides the Sunand Stars for ever dwell:I will not say the Day is done,nor bid the Stars farewell.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien