Top 500 J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “The treacherous are ever distrustful.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

202. “My ‘Sam Gamgee’ is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

203. “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

204. “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

205. “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

206. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

209. “If we all got angry together something might be done.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

210. “Memory is not what the heart desires.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

211. “For I am the daughter of Elrond. I shall not go with him when he departs to the Havens: for mine is the choice of Luthien, and as she so have I chosen, both the sweet and the bitter.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

212. “To be a cult figure in one’s own lifetime is most unpleasant.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

214. “The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

215. “Courage is found in unlikely places,’ said Gildor. ‘Be of good hope!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

216. “Who knows? Have patience. Go where you must go, and hope!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

217. “The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

218. “Far over misty mountains cold To dungeons deep and caverns old We must away, ere break of day, To find our long-forgotten gold.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

219. “Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

220. “Their ‘magic’ is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

221. “Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

222. “I would have followed you. My brother. My captain. My king.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

223. “Without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

224. “Do you remember when we first met? I thought I had wandered into a dream.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

226. “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

227. “The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

228. “I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

229. “This is the ending. Now not day only shall be beloved, but night too shall be beautiful and blessed and all its fear pass away.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

230. “For victory is victory, however small, nor is its worth only from what follows from it.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

231. “The main mark of modern governments is that we do not know who governs, de facto any more than de jure. We see the politician and not his backer; still less the backer of the backer; or, what is most important of all, the banker of the backer.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

232. “False hopes are more dangerous than fears.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

233. “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.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

234. “But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed, while others reap and sow in his stead.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

235. “For myself, I find I become less cynical rather than more – remembering my own sins and follies; and realize that men’s hearts are not often as bad as their acts, and very seldom as bad as their words.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

236. “If you’re referring to the incident with the Dragon, I was barely involved. All I did was give your uncle a little nudge out of the door.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

237. “Perhaps it is better not to tell what you wish. if you cannot have it.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

238. “He did not falter, as long as there was a path that led toward his goal.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

239. “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

240. “A red sun rises. Blood has been spilled this night.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

241. “There are many powers in the world, for good or for evil. Some are greater than I am. Against some I have not yet been measured. But my time is coming.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

242. “It gives me great pleasure, a good name. I always in writing start with a name. Give me a name and it produces a story, not the other way about normally.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

243. “We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

244. “All my own perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded upon Our Lady.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

245. “No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

246. “Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

247. “Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.’ ‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ’and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black. The Enemy is fast becoming very strong.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

248. “Farewell! I go to find the Sun!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

249. “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!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

250. “And long there he lay, an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien