Top 500 J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “It is mine, I tell you. My own. My precious. Yes, my precious.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

102. “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour 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.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

103. “The wise speak only of what they know.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

104. “Together we will take the road that leads into the West, And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

105. “Living by faith includes the call to something greater than cowardly self-preservation.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

106. “I have an unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

107. “If this is victory, then our hands are too small to hold it.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

108. “You can only come to the morning through the shadows.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

109. “How do you move on? You move on when your heart finally understands that there is no turning back.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

110. “Don’t go where I can’t follow!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

111. “I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

112. “Third time pays for all.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

114. “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.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

115. “The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

116. “If by my life or death I can protect you, I will.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

117. “But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

118. “Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. “After all this time?” “Always,” said Snape.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

119. “Things will go as they will, and there is no need to hurry to meet them.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

120. “Where there’s life there’s hope, and need of vittles.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

121. “Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

122. “Aure entuluva! day shall come again!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

123. “And she looked at him and saw the grave tenderness in his eyes, and yet knew, for she was bred among men of war, that here was one whom no Rider of the Mark could outmatch in battle.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

124. “Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

125. “We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

126. “Such is of 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.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

127. “Handsome is as handsome does.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

129. “It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterward were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

131. “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

132. “The chief purpose of life, for any of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

134. “If you’re going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you’ll never make a map of it afterwards.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

135. “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.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

136. “A pen is to me as a beak is to a hen.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

137. “Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,’ said Gimli. ‘Maybe,’ said Elrond, ‘but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.’ ‘Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart,’ said Gimli. ‘Or break it,’ said Elrond.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

138. “I want to be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

139. “Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

140. “I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago, and of people who will see a world that I shall never know.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

141. “All that glitters is not gold.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

142. “Let the unseen days be. Today is more than enough.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

143. “Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the key-hole.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

144. “To whatever end. Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountains. Like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the west. Behind the hills, into shadow. How did it come to this?”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

145. “In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

146. “It’s a dangerous business, going out your door.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

147. “Where will wants not, a way opens.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

148. “Fear both the heat and the cold of your heart, and try to have patience, if you can.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

150. “He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien