The Lord of the Rings Quotes

“His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.”

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”

“Courage is found in unlikely places.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. 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. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

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

“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.”

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

“In this hour, I do not believe that any darkness will endure.”

“Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.”

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

“All’s well that ends better.”

“Short cuts make long delays.”

“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.”

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

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

“I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to.”

“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.”

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

“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.”

“Deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.”

“All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost.”

“You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?” “No!” cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. “With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.” His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. “Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.”

To me it would not seem that a Steward who faithfully surrenders his charge is diminished in love or in honour.

Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell. Naked I was sent back – for a brief time, until my task is done.

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.

He is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.

“I am with you at present,” said Gandalf, “but soon I shall not be. I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.”

Let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning.

It is a comfort not to be mistaken at all points. Do I not know it only too well!

“What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!” “Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”

“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.”

“The counsel of Gandalf was not founded on foreknowledge of safety, for himself or for others,” said Aragorn. “There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.”

“Deep is the abyss that is spanned by Durin’s Bridge, and none has measured it,” said Gimli. “Yet it has a bottom, beyond light and knowledge,” said Gandalf.

The treacherous are ever distrustful.

With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard’s knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. ‘Fly, you fools!’ he cried, and was gone.

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

“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”

“Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise.”

“Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace!”

“Home is behind, the world ahead, And there are many paths to tread Through shadows to the edge of night, Until the stars are all alight.”

“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.”

“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.”

“Hill. Yes, that was it. But it is a hasty word for a thing that has stood here ever since this part of the world was shaped.”

“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.”

“Indeed I have not seen them roused like this for many an age. We Ents do not like being roused; and we never are roused unless it is clear to us that our trees and our lives are in great danger.”

“The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.”

“And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”

″‘I am old, Gandalf. I don’t look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed!’ he snorted. ‘Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.‘”

″‘Not this way, master!’ he pleaded. ‘There is another way. O yes indeed there is. Another way, darker, more difficult to find, more secret. But Sméagol knows it. Let Sméagol show you!‘”

“Short cuts make delays, but inns make longer ones.”

“Where there’s life there’s hope, and need of vittles.”

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

“Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.”

“Gandalf was shorter in stature than the other two; but his long white hair, his sweeping beard, and his broad shoulders, made him look like some wise king of ancient legend. In his aged face under great snowy brows his eyes were set like coals that could suddenly burst into fire.”

“The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.”

“Many of the Ents are younger than I am, by many lives of trees. They are all roused now, and their mind is all on one thing: breaking Isengard. But they will start thinking again before long; they will cool down a little . . . But let them march now and sing! We have a long way to go, and there is time ahead for thought. It is something to have started.”

“Let them march now and sing! We have a long way to go, and there is time ahead for thought. It is something to have started.”

“It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill.”

“This is the Master-ring, the One Ring to rule them all. This is the One Ring that he lost many ages ago, to the great weakening of his power. He greatly desires it — but he must not get it.”

″‘And it is also said,’ answered Frodo: ‘Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.‘”

“Oft in lies truth is hidden.”

“Valour needs first strength, and then a weapon.”

“It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of this malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it.”

“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.”

“Only a small part is played in great deeds by any hero.”

“To crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face.”

“News from afar is seldom sooth.”

“But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.”

“The hasty stroke goes oft astray.”

“Oft the unbidden guest proves the best company.”

“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.”

“Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.”

“Yet a treacherous weapon is ever a danger to the hand.”

“None knows what the new day shall bring him.”

“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.”

“The wise speak only of what they know.”

“Do not trouble your hearts overmuch with thought of the road tonight. Maybe the paths that you each shall tread are already laid before your feet, though you do not see them.”

“Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear.”

“Yet do not cast all hope away. Tomorrow is unkown. Rede oft is found at the rising of the Sun.”