Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

He led the way in under the huge branches of the trees. Old beyond guessing, they seemed. Great trailing beards of lichen hung from them, blowing and swaying in the breeze. Out of the shadows, the hobbits peeped, gazing back down the slope: little furtive figures that in the dim light looked like elf-children in the deeps of time peering out of the Wild Wood in wonder at their first Dawn.

Evolution | Future | Important | Learning | Science |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

I will not give you counsel, saying do this, or do that. For not in doing or contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; but only in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be.

Anger | Behavior | Courage | Experience | Listening | Model |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Having the romantic upbringing, I made a boy-and-girl affair serious, and made it the source of effort. - On his romance with Edith

Cost | Exploit | System |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, owyn!

System |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Far more often [than asking the question 'Is it true?'] they [children] have asked me: 'Was he good? Was he wicked?' That is, they were far more concerned to get the Right side and the Wrong side clear. For that is a question equally important in History and in Faerie.

Law |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

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.

Harmony | System | Will |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Fairy tale does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies in the face of much evidence, if you will universal final defeat... giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy; Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

Change | System |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

For a while they stood there, like men on the edge of a sleep where nightmare lurks, holding it off, though they know that they can only come to morning through the shadows.

Inevitable | System |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Here was one with an air of high nobility such as Aragorn at times revealed, less high perhaps, yet also less incalculable and remote: one of the Kings of Men born into a later time, but touched with the wisdom and sadness of the Eldar Race. He knew now why Beregond spoke his name with love. He was a captain that men would follow, that he would follow, even under the shadow of the black wings.

Organization | System |