J.R.R. Tolkien quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from J.R.R. Tolkien on Wise Famous Quotes.

I found not being able to use a pen or pencil as defeating as the loss of her beak would be to a hen.

Art moves them and they don't know what they've been moved by and they get quite drunk on it.

Books ought to have good endings.How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?

Go now, and die in what way seems best to you.

...as young and as ancient as Spring....

Don't dip your beard in the foam, Father!" They cried to Thorin. "It is long enough without watering it!

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

He will not serve, only command. He lives now in terror of the shadow of Mordor, and yet he still dreams of riding the storm. Unhappy

Then holding the star aloft and the bright sword advanced, Frodo, hobbit of the Shire, walked steadily down to meet the eyes.

The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation - This story begins and ends in joy.

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

The dawn is brief and the day full often belies its promise.

But there, my friends, songs like trees bear fruit only in their own time and their own way: and sometimes they are withered untimely.

His love for Frodo rose above all other thoughts, and forgetting his peril he cried aloud: 'I'm coming Mr. Frodo!

I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.

Far over the misty mountains cold. To dungeons deep, and caverns old

All shall love me and despair.

Many are the strange chances of the world,' said Mithrandir, 'and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.

Ring a ding dillo del! derry, del, my hearties! If you come soon you'll find breakfast on the table. If you come late you'll get grass and rain-water!

But what has it got in its pocketses, eh?

Who knows? Have patience. Go where you must go, and hope!

Short cuts make long delays,' argued Pippin.

Not all those who wonder are lost.

Nor do I think that we should succeed, if we tried. There are other powers at work far stronger.

I want to be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.

It is mine, I tell you. My own. My precious. Yes, my precious.

Better mistrust undeserved than rash words.

Against the coming in of evil I may do much,' she answered. 'But against the going out of those who will go, nothing.

For he gave it up in the end of his own accord: an important point. No,

Dead men are not friends to living men, and give them no gifts.

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

Things might have been different, but they could not have been better.

I can't be the Ring-bearer. Not without Mr. Frodo!

You have nice manners for a thief and a liar, said the dragon.

Farmer Giles went home feeling very uncomfortable. He was finding that a local reputation may require keeping up, and that may prove awkward.

He did not falter, as long as there was a path that led toward his goal.

... she shone in beauty upon the shore; Long did my glance on her alight, and the longer I looked I knew her more.

If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it's my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth.

Never laugh at live dragons.

I pity snails, and all that carry their homes on their backs.

Fear both the heat and the cold of your heart, and try to have patience, if you can.

But time does not stand still, though the Sun be lost.

It's the deep breath before the plunge.

I have an unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow.

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

There is still hope.

The hasty stroke oft goes astray.

Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.

The westward road seems easiest. Therefore it must be shunned.

And then alas! I let the matter reset, watching and waiting only, as we have too often done.

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

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

An old man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down

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

true courage is not knowing when to take a life, but when to spare one"
~Gandalf

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

But Iluvatar knew that Men, being set amid the turmoils of the powers of the world, would stray often, and would not use their gifts in harmony

Nay, the guest who has escaped from the roof, will think twice before he comes back in by the door.

I have passed through fire and deep water, since we parted. I have forgotten much that I thought I knew, and learned again much that I had forgotten.

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

You speak evil of that which is fair beyond the reach of your thought, and only little wit can excuse you.

I am a Christian and of course what I write will be from that essential viewpoint.

Still she did not blench: maiden of the Rohirrim, child of kings, slender but as a steel-blade, fair yet terrible.

Green are the leaves I leave in Mirkwood.

We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures.

In her hand she held a harp, and she sang. Sad and sweet was the sound of her voice in the cool clear air.

he can see through a brick wall in time (as they say in Bree). But

Just why Mr. Frodo was selling his beautiful hole was even more debatable than the price.

You can't trust us to let you face trouble alone.

Bilbo of course ought to have been on his guard; but Smaug had rather an overwhelming personality.

I have spoken words of hope. But only of hope. Hope is not victory.

It's got to ask uss a question, my preciouss, yes, yess, yesss. Jusst one more question to guess, yes, yess," said Gollum.

And he smote the Balrog upon the mountainside.

Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something.

I look foul and feel fair.

But it seems that the wind is setting East, and the withering of all Woods may be drawing near.

Farewell!' he said to Gandalf. 'I go to find the Sun!

The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.

Living by faith includes the call to something greater than cowardly self-preservation.

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

We spend our waning strength to no avail. For till we be sure where the Dragon will pass, it is vain to climb.' 'But

One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters. You did rightly.

Until the coming of another day of fear, they walked in silence with bowed heads.

Strange are the turns of fortune! Often does hatred hurt itself!

For if joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun, its springs are in the wells of sorrow unfathomable at the foundations of the Earth.

The 'fairy-story' is really an adult genre, and one for which a starving audience exists.

I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin.

They rode on through sunset, and slow dusk, and gathering night.

The fires went out, and blank darkness fell. The Company stood rooted with horror sraring into the pit.

Evidently we look so much alike that your desire to make an incurable dent in my hat must be excused.

I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.

True education is a kind of never ending story - a matter of continual beginnings, of habitual fresh starts, of persistent newness.

Grief is a hone to a hard mind.

And what more can hobbits do? They can be comic, but their comedy is suburban unless it is set against things more elemental.

I am he that walks unseen.

I shall claim full amends for every fall and stubbed toe, if you do not lead us well.

The treacherous are ever distrustful.

Short cuts make long delays.

I tried to find one; but warriors are busy fighting one another in distant lands,

Fantasy (in this sense) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent.