Top 500 J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

204. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

206. “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

207. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

209. “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

210. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

212. “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

213. “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

214. “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

215. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

224. “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

225. “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

226. “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

227. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

230. “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

231. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

233. “We are never late. We arrive precisely when we mean to.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

234. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

236. “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

237. “He stands not alone. You would die before your stroke fell.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

238. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien

240. “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

241. “Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

242. “There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. 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

243. “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

244. “We set out to save the Shire, Sam and it has been saved – but not for me.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

245. “Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

246. “It is wisdom to recognize necessity when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

247. “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

248. “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

249. “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

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

— J. R. R. Tolkien