Top 500 J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes (2023 Update)
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151. “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

152. “I am old, Gandalf. I don’t look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed! Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

154. “You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

155. “Mind your P’s and Q’s.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

156. “It is mine to give to whom I will, like my heart.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

157. “Why must you speak your thoughts? Silence, if fair words stick in your throat, would serve all our ends better.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

159. “For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

160. “So fair, so cold; like a morning of pale spring still clinging to winter’s chill.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

161. “There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

162. “Time doesn’t seem to pass here: it just is.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

163. “Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on on the story.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

164. “For nothing is evil in the beginning.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

165. “Frodo: Go back, Sam! I’m going to Mordor alone. Sam: Of course you are, and I’m coming with you!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

166. “The grey-rain curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

167. “Your time may come. Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

168. “Tomorrow we may come this way, And take the hidden paths that run Towards the Moon or to the Sun.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

169. “The greater part of the truth is always hidden, in regions out of the reach of cynicism.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

170. “I would rather spend one lifetime with you, than face all the ages of this world alone.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

171. “Maybe the paths that you each shall tread are already laid before your feet though you do not see them.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

172. “Fair speech may hide a foul heart.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

173. “He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

174. “I don’t know, and I would rather not guess.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

175. “Often does hatred hurt itself.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

176. “Do not spoil the wonder with haste!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

177. “Where did you go to, if I may ask?? said Thorin to Gandalf as they rode along. To look ahead,? said he. And what brought you back in the nick of time?? Looking behind,? said he.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

178. “You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

179. “See your road through.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

180. “The Nazgul they were; the Ringwraiths, the Enemy’s most terribly servants; darkness went with them and they cried with the voices of death.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

181. “The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there in peace. War will make corpses of us all.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

182. “He told them tales of bees and flowers, the ways of trees, and the strange creatures of the Forest, about the evil things and the good things, things friendly and things unfriendly, cruel things and kind things, and secrets hidden under brambles.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

183. “He was as noble and fair in face as an elf-lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as kind as summer.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

184. “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.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

185. “The burned hand teaches best. After that, advice about fire goes to the heart.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

186. “May the hair on your toes never fall out!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

187. “I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

188. “But in the end it’s only a passing thing, this shadow; even darkness must pass.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

189. “It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

190. “I warn you, if you bore me, I shall take my revenge.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

191. “The war made me poignantly aware of the beauty of the world.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

192. “I’ve always been impressed that we are here, surviving, because of the indomitable courage of quite small people against impossible odds.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

193. “The way is shut. Then they halted and looked at him and saw that he lived still; but he did not look at them. The way is shut, his voice said again. It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it, until the time comes. The way is shut.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

194. “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.? I should think so – in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

195. “And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

196. “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.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

197. “And yet their wills did not yield, and they struggled on.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

198. “A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

199. “There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

200. “I am in fact, a hobbit in all but size.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien