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The most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

J. R. R. Tolkien

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J. R. R. Tolkien
Age: 81 †
Born: 1892
Born: January 3
Died: 1973
Died: September 2
Author
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Military Officer
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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
John R. R. Tolkien
J-R-R Tolkien
Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
Take
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Million
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Millions
Improper
Least
Unwilling
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Saints
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Wraiths! Wraiths on wings!
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Sam, clinging to Frodo's arm, collapsed on a step in the black darkness. 'Poor old Bill!' he said in a choking voice. 'Poor old Bill! Wolves and snakes! But the snakes were too much for him. I had to choose, Mr. Frodo. I had to come with you.
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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.
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If this nice friendliness would spread about in Mordor, half our trouble would be over.
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It was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort
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All my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded.
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I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fáfnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever the cost of peril.
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Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.
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Over hill and under hill
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Speak politely to an enraged dragon.
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The treacherous are ever distrustful.
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Lazy Lob and crazy Cob are weaving webs to wind me. I am far more sweet than other meat, but still they cannot find me! Here am I, naughty little fly you are fat and lazy. You cannot trap me, though you try, in your cobwebs crazy.
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Farewell we call to hearth and hall! Though wind may blow and rain may fall. We must away ere the break of day. Far over wood and mountain tall.
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Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.
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I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.
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There are many things in the deep waters and seas and lands may change. 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. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one.
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Farewell, they cried, Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey's end! That is the polite thing to say among eagles. May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks, answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.
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Little by little, one travels far
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he was for long my only audience... Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The L. of the R. to a conclusion.
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evil labours with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.
J. R. R. Tolkien