Quotes from J. R. R. Tolkien

The Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally small reach of their imagination - not the small reach of their courage or latent power.

What punishments of God are not gifts?

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

History often resembles myth, because they are both ultimately of the same stuff.

Home is now behind you, the world is ahead!

False hopes are more dangerous than fears.

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!

We must do without hope.

Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge.

The birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus means that one day everything sad will come untrue.

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

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead. Today and tomorrow are yet to be said. The chances, the changes are all yours to make. The mold of your life is in your hands to break.

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

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

His face was sad and stern because of the doom that was laid on him, and yet hope dwelt ever in the depths of his heart, from which mirth would arise at times like a spring from a rock.

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.

his old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life.

It is no bad thing celebrating a simple life.

If you do not believe in a personal God, the question: 'What is the purpose of life?' is unaskable and unanswerable.

A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.

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.