John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, better known as just J.R.R. Tolkien, is, of course, best known for his high fantasy works, The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. However, did you know that mister Tolkien was also a poet, philologist, and academic appointed by Queen Elizabeth II as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire? Well, now you do, and now you know that his great ideas truly do come from him being a highly educated, curious, and intelligent human and not from some cosmic ray directed to his cranium by ethereal aliens. But no, we won’t delve into that thought any deeper and would rather invite you to read these J.R.R. Tolkien quotes that we’ve gathered in this list instead.
If you’ve read any of Tolkien’s works (and we bet you have), then you know that his books are deeply saturated with meaning and the search for it. And, in this quest to answer ages-old questions, Tolkien manages to tap into something none of us expect to hear - real answers. However, you have to read and re-read his brilliant quotes to truly get all the layers of meaning embedded in them, but hey, the brain is a muscle (it is not), and it needs regular exercise (now, this one’s true) to stay nimble!
So, are you ready to experience the true wisdom that J.R.R. Tolkien has left for us? If so, scroll on down below and read his intelligent quotes! Don’t forget to give your vote for the moving quotes you thought were the best, and share this inspiring article with anyone in need!
This post may include affiliate links.
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
“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”
I scrolled all the way down here looking for this one. It is my all-time favourite and has been so meaningful to me throughout the last couple of years with everything happening in our world.
“Let the unseen days be. Today is more than enough.”
“It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.”
“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.”
“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.”
“End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take.”
“The world is not in your books and maps; it is out there.”
“The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.”
“I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Maybe the paths that you each shall tread are already laid before your feet though you do not see them.”
“Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on on the story.”
“Above all shadows rides the sun and Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the day is done, nor bid the stars farewell.”
“How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand… there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep.”
“There is more in you of good than you know. 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.”
“Go back?” he thought. “No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!” So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.”
“Curse the Baggins! It’s gone! What has it got in its pocketses? Oh we guess, we guess, my precious. He’s found it, yes he must have.”
“There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?”
“I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.”
“The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can.”
“Darkness must pass a new day will come and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.”
“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.”
“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”
“The brave things in the old tales and songs, adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for because they wanted them because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seems to have been just landed in them, usually — their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on — and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same — like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?”
“It is the way of my people to use light words at such times and say less than they mean. We fear saying too much. It robs us of the right words when a jest is out of place.”
“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.”
“It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.”
“The blind was down; but outside the moon rose up out of the sea, and laid the silver path across the waters that is the way to places at the edge of the world and beyond, for those that can walk on it.”
“The invention of languages is the foundation. The ‘stories’ were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows.”
“Frodo gave a cry, and there was, fallen upon his knees at the chasm’s edge. But Gollum, dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger still thrust within its circle.”
'"Deep is the abyss that is spanned by Durin’s Bridge, and none has measured it,' said Gimli. 'Yet it has a bottom, beyond light and knowledge,' said Gandalf."
“I am with you at present,” said Gandalf, “but soon I shall not be. I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to right, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.”
“Don’t leave me here alone! It’s your Sam calling. Don’t go where I can’t follow! Wake up, Mr. Frodo! O wake up, Frodo, me dear, me dear. Wake up!”
“As he gazed at it suddenly Sam understood, almost with a shock, that this stronghold had been built not to keep enemies out of Mordor, but to keep them in.”
“For of us is required a blind trust, and a hope without assurance, knowing not what lies before us in a little while.”
“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick.”
“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.”
“Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”
“For you do not yet know the strengths of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet on the road.”
“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 very wise cannot see all ends.”
“For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green.”
“It’s a dangerous business going out of your front door. There’s no telling where you might be swept off to.”
“It’s like in the great stories. 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.”
“’Don’t the great tales never end?’ ‘No, they never end as tales,’ said Frodo. ‘But the people in them come, and go when their part’s ended. Our part will end later – or sooner.’”
“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
“There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.”
“Courage will now be your best defense against the storm that is at hand - that and such hope as I bring.”
“For so sworn good or evil an oath may not be broken and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world’s end.”
“I am tired of stairs and stone passages. I would give a good deal for the feel of grass at my toes.”
“Love not too well the work of thy hands and the devices of thy heart; and remember that the true hope of the Noldor lieth in the West, and cometh from the Sea.”
“Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that came down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures. And of these histories, most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and Lúthien.”
“The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and be able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter’s power.”
“Why must you speak your thoughts? Silence, if fair words stick in your throat, would serve all our ends better.”
″‘Precious, precious, precious!’ Gollum cried. ‘My Precious! O my Precious!’ And with that, even as his eyes were lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered for a moment on the brink, and then with a shriek, he fell. Out of the depths came his last wail precious, and he was gone.”
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
“‘At last all such things must end,’ he said, ‘but I would have you wait a little while longer: for the end of the deeds that you have shared it has not yet come. A day draws near that I have looked for in all the years of my manhood, and when it comes I would have my friends beside me.‘”
“And you’re with me. And the journey’s finished. But after coming all that way I don’t want to give up yet. It’s not like me, somehow, if you understand.”
“In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him.”
“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, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth.”
“You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you yourself keep it. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends.”
“And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.”
“Few other griefs amid the ill chances of this world have more bitterness and shame for a man’s heart than to behold the love of a lady so fair and brave that cannot be returned.”
“And then her heart changed, or at least she understood it; and the winter passed, and the sun shone upon her.”
“His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.”
“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”
“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!”
“Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.”
“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?”
“Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don’t know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum.”
“What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature when he had a chance!”
“Pity? It was Pity that stayed in his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”
“I thought that Elves were all for moon and stars: but this is more elvish than anything I ever heard tell of. I feel as if I was inside a song, if you take my meaning.”
“And people will say: ‘Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring!’ And they’ll say: ‘Yes, that’s one of my favorite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn’t he dad?’ ‘Yes, my boy, the most famous of the hobbits, and that’s saying a lot.‘”
“...He had stuck to his master all the way; that was what he had chiefly come for, and he would still stick to him. His master would not go to Mordor alone.”
“Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.”
“Home is behind, the world ahead, and there are many paths to tread through shadows to the edge of night, until the stars are all alight. then world behind and home ahead, we’ll wander back and home to bed. mist and twilight, cloud and shade, away shall fade! Away shall fade!”
“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.”
“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.”
“Hobbits always so polite, yes! O nice hobbits! Smeagol brings them up secret ways that nobody else could find. Tired he is, thirsty he is, yes thirsty; and he guides them and he searches for paths, and they saw sneak, sneak. Very nice friends, O yes my precious, very nice.”
"Let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart, the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of the reckoning."
"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."
“Sam is an excellent fellow, and would jump down a dragon’s throat to save you, if he did not trip over his own feet.”
“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, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth.”
“No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.”
″‘Stew the rabbits!’ squealed Gollum in dismay. ‘Spoil beautiful meat Smeagol saved for you, poor hungry Smeagol!’”
"With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard’s knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. ‘Fly, you fools!’ he cried, and was gone."
“This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected.”
“We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!”
