Quote

Life is rather above the measure of us all (save for a very few perhaps). We all need literature that is above our measure--though we may not have sufficient energy for it all the time.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

J. R. R. Tolkien
Age: 81 †
Born: 1892
Born: January 3
Died: 1973
Died: September 2
Author
Essayist
Historian
Illustrator
Linguist
Literary Critic
Military Officer
Poet
Teacher
Translator
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
John R. R. Tolkien
J-R-R Tolkien
Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
Rather
Energy
May
Sufficient
Need
Measure
Needs
Save
Time
Perhaps
Life
Literature
Though

More quotes by J. R. R. Tolkien

Image
There was a willow hanging over the mill-pool and I learned to climb it. It belonged to a butcher on the Stratford Road, I think. One day they cut it down. They didn't do anything with it: the log just lay there. I never forgot that.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
Fifteen birds in five firtrees, their feathers were fanned in a fiery breeze! But, funny little birds, they had no wings! O what shall we do with the funny little things? Roast 'em alive, or stew them in a pot fry them, boil them and eat them hot?
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
With hope or without hope we will follow the trail of our enemies. And woe to them, if we prove the swifter!
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
The strongest must seek a way, say you? But I say: let a ploughman plough, but choose an otter for swimming, and for running light over grass and leaf, or over snow- an Elf!
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
If you took this thing on yourself, unwilling, at others' asking, then you have pity and honour from me. And I marvel at you: to keep it hid and not to use it. You are a new people and a new world to me. Are all your kin of like sort? Your land must be a realm of peace and content, and there must gardners be in high hounour.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
This of course is the way to talk to dragons, if you don't want to reveal your proper name which is wise, and don't want to infuriate them by a flat refusal which is also very wise. No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time to trying to understand it.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
He knew that all the hazards and perils were now drawing together to a point: the next day would be a day of doom, the day of final effort or disaster, the last gasp.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
Don't the great tales never end? No, they never end as tales, said Frodo. But the people in them come, and go when their part's ended. Our part will end later – or sooner.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
Fear nothing! Have peace until the morning! Heed no nightly noises!
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
For nothing is evil in the beginning.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow in the waters that was soon lost in the West. There he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-Earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
Such bees! Bilbo had never seen anything like them. If one were to sting me, He thought I should swell up as big as I am!
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
Trolls are slow in the uptake, and mighty suspicious about anything new to them.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
And it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
You cannot pass, he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
People remember Longfellow wrote Hiawatha, quite forget he was a Professor of Modern Languages!
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
Tall ships and tall kings Three times three, What brought they from the foundered land Over the flowing sea? Seven stars and seven stones And one white tree. (The Two Towers)
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Image
Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves.
J. R. R. Tolkien