J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

Quotes

• Little by little, one travels far.

• The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure.

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

• 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.

• The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last...
  The great battle of our time.

• The world has changed.
  I see it in the water.
  I feel it in the Earth.
  I smell it in the air.
  Much that once was is lost,
  For none now live who remember it.

• Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise.

• Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them becuase they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.

• There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over... Faint to my ears came the gathered rumour of all lands: the springing and the dying, the song and the weeping, and the slow everlasting groan of overburdened stone.

• We are never late. We arrive precisely when we mean to.

• I am in fact a Hobbit, in all but size.

• Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works...

• With hope or without hope we will follow the trail of our enemies. And woe to them, if we prove the swifter!

• Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue.

• The treacherous are ever distrustful.

• He should not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.

• Few can foresee whither their road will lead them, till they come to its end.

• It's wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.

• For though I do not ask for aid, we need it.

• I have no help to send, therefore I must go myself.