He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
¶ (Attributed)
Quotations by ...
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) British writer [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.
¶ (Attributed)
There are ... conflicts about important things or ideas In such cases I am more impressed by the extreme importance of being on the right side, than I am disturbed by the revelation of the jungle of confused motives, private purposes, and individual actions (noble or base) in which the right and the wrong in actual human conflicts are commonly involved.
¶ Letters
Notes on W.H. Auden's review of Return of the King
Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses ....
¶ Letters, Letter to Christopher Tolkien (29 Nov 1943)
"I wish it need not have happened in my lifetime," 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."
¶ The Fellowship of the Ring
All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost.
¶ The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
¶ The Fellowship of the Ring (Gandalf)
The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.
¶ The Fellowship of the ring
'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
¶ The Lost Road, ed. C. Tolkien (1987) (Alboin Errol)
Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
¶ The Return of the King
"It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden," answered Éowyn. "And those who have not swords can still die upon them. "
¶ The Return of the King, Book VI, ch. 5
It takes but one to make a war, not two, and those who do not take up swords can still die upon them.
¶ The Two Towers (Eowyn)
"...War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend..."
¶ The Two Towers, Book IV, ch. 5 (Faramir)
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WIST is my collection of quotations I find meaningful, moving, amusing (intended or not), well-phrased, and/or to which I just say I "Wish I'd Said That." But just because I quote it here doesn't mean I actually agree with it. If you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to
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