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J.R.R. Tolkien Quotes

Writer

The legendary storytelling of J.R.R. Tolkien has inspired generations with its richly crafted worlds, epic adventures, and profound themes. His words explore courage, friendship, and the enduring battle between good and evil, resonating far beyond the pages of Middle-earth. The following quotes capture the wisdom, imagination, and timeless insight that define his extraordinary literary legacy.

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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).
From The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
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I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to
From The Two Towers
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Courage will now be your best defence against the storm that is at hand-—that and such hope as I bring.
From The Return of the King
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There is still hope...You are not alone.
From The Fellowship of the Ring
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Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death. . .
. . . (quoting an obituary) 'There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that ever happens to man is natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident, and even if he knows it he would sense to it an unjustifiable violation.' Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the key spring of The Lord Of The Rings
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Ónen i-estel edain, ú-chebin estel anim.
(I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept none for myself.)
(Gilraen's linnod)
From The Return of the King
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Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I 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!
From The Return of the King
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If you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you will realize that this was only poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit, even to Old Took's great-grand-uncle Bullroarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfimbul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment.
From The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
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I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen
Of meadow flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair

I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see

For still there are so many things
That I have never seen
In every wood in every spring
There is a different green

I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people that will see a world
That I shall never know

But all the while I sit and think
Of times there were before
I listen for returning feet
And voices at the door
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"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."
From The Fellowship of the Ring
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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.
From The Return of the King
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We set out to save the Shire, Sam and it has been saved - but not for me.
From The Return of the King
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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.
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If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
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It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.
From The Fellowship of the Ring
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End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take.
From The Return of the King
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Little by little, one travels far.
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Not all those who wander are lost.
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Still we shall have to try,' said Frodo. 'It's no worse than I expected. I never hoped to get across. I can't see any hope of it now. But I've still got to do the best I can.
From The Lord of the Rings
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He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else knew about it was beside the purpose.
From The Two Towers
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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?
From The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
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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!
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And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns...Great horns of the north wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.
From The Return of the King
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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.
From The Fellowship of the Ring
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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).
From The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to
From The Two Towers
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Courage will now be your best defence against the storm that is at hand-—that and such hope as I bring.
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is still hope...You are not alone.
From The Fellowship of the Ring
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death. . .
. . . (quoting an obituary) 'There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that ever happens to man is natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident, and even if he knows it he would sense to it an unjustifiable violation.' Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the key spring of The Lord Of The Rings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Ónen i-estel edain, ú-chebin estel anim.
(I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept none for myself.)
(Gilraen's linnod)
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I 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!
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you will realize that this was only poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit, even to Old Took's great-grand-uncle Bullroarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfimbul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment.
From The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen
Of meadow flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair

I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see

For still there are so many things
That I have never seen
In every wood in every spring
There is a different green

I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people that will see a world
That I shall never know

But all the while I sit and think
Of times there were before
I listen for returning feet
And voices at the door
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
"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."
From The Fellowship of the Ring
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
We set out to save the Shire, Sam and it has been saved - but not for me.
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.
From The Fellowship of the Ring
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take.
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Little by little, one travels far.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Not all those who wander are lost.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Still we shall have to try,' said Frodo. 'It's no worse than I expected. I never hoped to get across. I can't see any hope of it now. But I've still got to do the best I can.
From The Lord of the Rings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else knew about it was beside the purpose.
From The Two Towers
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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?
From The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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!
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns...Great horns of the north wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
From The Fellowship of the Ring
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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).
From The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to
From The Two Towers
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Courage will now be your best defence against the storm that is at hand-—that and such hope as I bring.
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is still hope...You are not alone.
From The Fellowship of the Ring
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death. . .
. . . (quoting an obituary) 'There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that ever happens to man is natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident, and even if he knows it he would sense to it an unjustifiable violation.' Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the key spring of The Lord Of The Rings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Ónen i-estel edain, ú-chebin estel anim.
(I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept none for myself.)
(Gilraen's linnod)
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I 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!
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you will realize that this was only poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit, even to Old Took's great-grand-uncle Bullroarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfimbul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment.
From The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen
Of meadow flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair

I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see

For still there are so many things
That I have never seen
In every wood in every spring
There is a different green

I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people that will see a world
That I shall never know

But all the while I sit and think
Of times there were before
I listen for returning feet
And voices at the door
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
"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."
From The Fellowship of the Ring
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
We set out to save the Shire, Sam and it has been saved - but not for me.
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.
From The Fellowship of the Ring
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take.
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Little by little, one travels far.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Not all those who wander are lost.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Still we shall have to try,' said Frodo. 'It's no worse than I expected. I never hoped to get across. I can't see any hope of it now. But I've still got to do the best I can.
From The Lord of the Rings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else knew about it was beside the purpose.
From The Two Towers
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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?
From The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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!
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns...Great horns of the north wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.
From The Return of the King
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
From The Fellowship of the Ring
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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