The collection / 386 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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386 results · Page 5 of 17Play this collection ▷

01Undated

The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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02Undated

It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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03Undated

Dead men are not friends to living men, and give them no gifts.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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04Undated

And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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05Undated

The grey-rain curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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06Undated

I will not debate with you Dark Elf. By the swords of the Noldor alone are your sunless woods defended. Your freedom to wander there wild you owe to my kin and but for them long since you would have laboured in thraldom in the pits of Angband. And here I am King and whether you will it or will it not my doom is law. This choice is given to you: abide here or to die here and so also for your son.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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07Undated

Short cuts make long delays.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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08Undated

Yes, I am here. And you are lucky to be here too after all the absurd things you've done since you left home.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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09Undated

There was a deep silence, only scraped on its surfaces by the faint quiver of empty seed-plumes, and broken grass-blades trembling in small air-movements they could not feel.'Not a bird!' said Sam mournfully.'No, no birds,' said Gollum. 'Nice birds!' He licked his teeth. 'No birds here. There are snakeses, wormses, things in the pools. Lots of things, lots of nasty things. No birds,' he ended sadly. Sam looked at him with distaste.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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10Undated

They made for his noise far quicker than he had expected. They were frightfully angry. Quite apart from the stones no spider has ever like being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course, is insulting to anybody.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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11Undated

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 / quote

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12Undated

We have had enough of the old men and the money-counters!" And people further off took up the cry: "Up Bowman, and down with the moneybags,

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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13Undated

As the light upon the leaves of trees, as the voice of clear waters, as the stars above the mists of the world, such was her glory and her loveliness; and in her face was a shining light.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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14Undated

The sons of Dior and Nimloth were Elured and Elurin; and a daughter also was born to them, and she was named Elwing, which is Star-spray, for she was born on a night of stars, whose light glittered in the spray of the waterfall of Lanthir Lamath beside her father's house.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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15Undated

Nightingales sang about her wherever she went.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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16Undated

Their faces were as a rule good-natured rather than beautiful.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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17Undated

He has led us in here against our fears, but he will lead us out again, at whatever cost to himself.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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18Undated

He did not falter, as long as there was a path that led toward his goal.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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19Undated

A good vocabulary is not acquired by reading books written according to some notion of the vocabulary of one's age group. It comes from reading books above one.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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20Undated

He willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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21Undated

...as young and as ancient as Spring....

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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22Undated

...and all the stars flowered in the sky.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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23Undated

[Hobbits] love peace and quiet and a good tilled earth.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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24Undated

It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.

J.R.R. Tolkien / quote

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