Top 500 J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes (2023 Update)
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351. “There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

352. “Few there were who could change his courses by counsel. None by force.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

353. “Where iss it, where iss it: my Precious, my Precious? It’s ours, it is, and we wants it.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

354. “Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zaram. Or so says the heart of Gimli the Dwarf.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

355. “Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, ‘a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.’ Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear and sadness.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

356. “What has roots as nobody sees, Is taller than trees Up, up it goes, And yet never grows? A mountain.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

357. “Shall we mourn here deedless forever a shadow-folk mist-haunting dropping vain tears in the thankless sea.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

358. “Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the Master: His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

359. “When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

360. “Green are the leaves I leave in Mirkwood.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

361. “For behold! the storm comes, and now all friends should gather together, lest each singly be destroyed.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

362. “Farewell! O Gandalf! May you ever appear where you are most needed and least expected!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

363. “Alive without breath, As cold as death; Never thirsty, ever drinking, All in mail never clinking.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

364. “Many evil things there are that your strong walls and bright swords do not stay.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

365. “Thief, thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

366. “Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added. And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

367. “It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

368. “You are a very fine person, Mr Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

369. “Is it nice, my preciousss? Is it juicy? Is it scrumptiously crunchable?”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

370. “Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

371. “This only was wanting. Now comes the night.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

372. “Go back?” he thought. “No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

373. “There was a most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm called Smaug.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

374. “No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

375. “Few other griefs amid the ill chances of this world have more bitterness and shame for a man’s heart than to behold the love of a lady so fair and brave that cannot be returned.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

376. “Is everything sad going to come untrue?”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

377. “Gandalf thought of most things; and though he could not do everything, he could do a great deal for friends in a tight corner.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

378. “He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

379. “In those days the Great Enemy, of whom Sauron of Mordor was but a servant, dwelt in Angband in the North, and the Elves of the West coming back to Middle-earth made war upon him to regain the Silmarils which he had stolen; and the fathers of Men aided the Elves.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

380. “O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees. Thy starlight on the Western Seas.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

381. “The Dark Lord has Nine. But we have One, mightier than they: the White Rider. He has passed through the fire and the abyss, and they shall fear him. We will go where he leads.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

382. “You ought not to be rude to an eagle, when you are only the size of a hobbit, and are up in hid eyrie at night!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

383. “Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars, not if you care for such things.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

384. “Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo! By water, wood and hill, by reed and willow, By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us! Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

385. “Curse us and crush us, my precious is lost!”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

386. “The King’s grace is greater than you know, and the law is become less stern than aforetime; or else no choice would be given you but to abide here to your life’s end.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

387. “And yet, Eomer, I say to you that she loves you more truly than me, for you she loves and knows; but in me she loves only a shadow and a thought: a hope of glory and great deeds, and lands far from the fields of Rohan. – Aragorn to Eomer, of Eowyn.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

388. “Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not so lavishly as on this occasion; but it was not a bad system.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

389. “The Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally small reach of their imagination.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

390. “I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament...”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

391. “I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

392. “Better mistrust undeserved than rash words.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

393. “For it is said in old lore, ‘The hands of the king are the hands of a healer.’ And so the rightful king could ever be known.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

394. “The fate of Men after death, maybe, is not in the hands of the Valar, nor was all foretold in the Music of the Ainur.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

395. “For of us is required a blind trust, and a hope without assurance, knowing not what lies before us in a little while.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

396. “You can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like: and allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

397. “Oh, that won’t do!’ said Bilbo. ‘Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?’ ‘It will do well, if it ever comes to that,’ said Frodo. ‘Ah!’ said Sam. ‘And where will they live? That’s what I often wonder.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

398. “A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

399. “If this nice friendliness would spread out in Mordor, half our trouble would be over.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

400. “Thus came Aragorn son of Arathorn, Elessar, Isildur’s heir, out of the Paths of the Dead, borne upon a wind from the sea to the kingdom of Gondor.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien