Top 500 J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— 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. “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.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

156. “I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

159. “Mind your P’s and Q’s.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

162. “I have no help to send, therefore I must go myself.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

163. “See your road through.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

164. “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

165. “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

166. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

175. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

177. “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

178. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

183. “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

184. “Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

185. “Often does hatred hurt itself.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

186. “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

187. “You have to understand the good in things, to detect the real evil.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

188. “Gandalf: Three hundred lives of men I have walked this earth and now I have no time.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

189. “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

190. “We meet again, at the turn of the tide. A great storm is coming, but the tide has turned.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

191. “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

192. “Farewell! wherever you fare, till your eyries receive you at the journey’s end!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

193. “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

194. “I have spoken words of hope. But only of hope. Hope is not victory.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

195. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

199. “The treacherous are ever distrustful.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

200. “Adventures are not all pony-rides in May-sunshine.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien