The 52 Best J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings)

Last updated on May 20, 2024

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (born 3 January 1892, Bloemfontein, South Africa – died 2 September 1973, Bournemouth, Hampshire, England) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic. He was an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon language (1925 to 1945) and English language and literature (1945 to 1959), and in 1972 he was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire). He is most famously known for his fantasy series; The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–55).

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

The birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus means that one day everything sad will come untrue.

Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

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.

I warn you, if you bore me, I shall take my revenge.

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
J. R. R. Tolkien

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
J. R. R. Tolkien

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
J. R. R. Tolkien

And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many.

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.

No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.

You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.

I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.

Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.

May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.

Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.
J. R. R. Tolkien

For of us is required a blind trust, and a hope without assurance, knowing not what lies before us in a little while.

A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.

There’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.

The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.

Don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you’ll land in trouble too big for you.

Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.

We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.
J. R. R. Tolkien

May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks.

Deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.

It may be the part of a friend to rebuke a friend’s folly.

And then her heart changed, or at least she understood it; and the winter passed, and the sun shone upon her.

In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.

He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.

It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.