J. R. R. Tolkien Life Quotations

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

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.

It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

'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.'

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.

There at last when the mallorn leaves were falling, but spring had not yet come, she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after, and elanor and niphredil bloom no more east of the Sea.

In life there can be no victor, for death comes to all and smites them.

It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill.

The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.

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.

In doubt a man of worth will trust to his own wisdom.

May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks.

Never laugh at live dragons.

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.

All have their worth and each contributes to the worth of the others.

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.

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.

Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.

False hopes are more dangerous than fears.

Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.

Little by little, one travels far

Still round the corner there may wait A new road or a secret gate And though I oft have passed them by A day will come at last when I Shall take the hidden paths that run West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.