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

I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mister Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

Will |

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

Goodbye, master, my dear! Forgive your Sam. He'll come back to this spot when the job's done - if he manages it. And then he'll not leave you again. Rest you quiet till I come; and may no foul creature come anigh you! And if the Lady could hear me and give me one wish, I would wish to come back and find you again. Good bye!

Enough | Innovation | Nature | Usefulness | Will | Inertia |

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

His love for Frodo rose above all other thoughts, and forgetting his peril he cried aloud: 'I'm coming, Mr. Frodo!' He ran forward to the climbing path, and over it. At once the road lurned left and plunged steeply down. Sam had crossed into Mordor.

World |

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

For the less even as for the greater there is some deed that he may accomplish but once only; and in that deed his heart shall rest.

Change |

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

I am commanded to go to the land of Mordor, and therefore I shall go,' said Frodo. 'If there is only one way, then I must take it. What comes after must come.

Change |

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

I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back. It isn't right to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains, that I want - I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you understand me.

Will |

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

Eomer said, How is a man to judge what to do in such times? As he has ever judged, said Aragorn. Good and evil have not changed since yesteryear, nor are they one thing among Elves and another among Men. It is a man?s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.

Computer | Evolution | Model | 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 Isildur would not surrender it to Elrond and C¡rdan who stood by. They counselled him to cast it into the fire of Orodruin night at hand... But Isildur refused this counsel, saying: 'This I will have as weregild for my father's death, and my brother's. Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?' And the Ring that he held seemed to him exceedingly fair to look on; and he would not suffer it to be destroyed.

Change | Kill | Organization |

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

His old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front.

People |

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

I had no desire to have either dreams or adventures like Alice, and the amount of them merely amused me. I had very little desire to look for buried treasure or fight pirates, and Treasure Island left me cool. Red Indians were better: there were bows and arrows (I had and have a wholly unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow), and strange languages, and glimpses of an archaic mode of life, and, above all, forests in such stories. But the land of Merlin and Arthur was better than these, and best of all the nameless North of Sigurd of the V”lsungs, and the prince of all dragons. Such lands were pre-eminently desirable.

Will |

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

I knew that danger lay ahead, of course; but I did not expect to meet it in our own Shire. Can't a hobbit walk from the Water to the River in peace? But it is not your own Shire, said Gildor. Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.

Will |