J.R.R. Tolkien Quotes

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the wise cannot see all ends.

Never laugh at live dragons.

I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect "history" to be anything but a "long defeat" — though it contains (and in legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.

Language has both strengthened imagination and been freed by it. Who shall say whether the free adjective has created images bizarre and beautiful, or the adjective been freed by strange and beautiful pictures in the mind ?

The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.

Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

The wise speak only of what they know.

It is the job that is never started that takes longest to finish.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be the blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.

It was like discovering a complete wine-filled cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavor never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me…

And lastly there is the oldest and deepest desire, the Great Escape: the Escape from Death. Fairy-stories provide many examples and modes of this ... Fairy-stories are made by men not by fairies. The Human-stories of the elves are doubtless full of the Escape from Deathlessness.

Victory after all, I suppose! Well, it seems a very gloomy business.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

The news today about 'Atomic bombs' is so horrifying one is stunned.

'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'

Wars are not favourable to delicate pleasures.

Not all who wander are lost.

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.