J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

As large as worlds. As old as Time. As patient as a brick.

We who live in this nervous age would be wise to meditate on our lives and our days long and often before the face of God and on the edge of eternity. For we are made for eternity as certainly as we are made for time, and as responsible moral beings we must deal with both.

In this world we live in a mixture of time and eternity. Hell would be pure time.

Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.

All ages are equidistant from eternity, and just as immediately accessible to God's presence.

We live in an age when there is a false glare on the things of time and a great mist over the things of eternity.

If we live in such a way that the considerations of eternity press upon us, we will make better decisions.

Everything that is not eternal is worthless in eternity.

He that will often put eternity and the world before him, and who will dare to look steadfastly at both of them, will find that the more often he contemplates them, the former will grow greater, and the latter less.

In the context of eternity, time doesn't matter.

One age is like another for the soul.

Our impulses toward instant gratification aren't to be trusted. Hoarding our resources isn't a worthy goal. We're created with eternity in our hearts, and our lives have everlasting value.

Do you know at this very moment you are surrounded by eternity? And do you know that you can use that eternity if you so desire?

You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them injustice. We immortals do not like things to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time. It consists, I don't mind telling you in confidence, in putting too high a value on time. I, too, once put too high a value on time. For that reason I wished to be a hundred years old. In eternity, however, there is no time, you see. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

No individual life is an end in itself. One can live fully only by participating fully in the succession of the generations, in death as well as in life. Some would say (and I am one of them) that we can live fully only by making ourselves answerable to the claims of eternity as to those of time.

Teach me your mood, O patient stars. Who climb each night, the ancient sky. leaving on space no shade, no scars, no trace of age, no fear to die.

Now he belongs to the ages.

I've been around for a very long time, I've been around since God had baby cheeks.

God has a thousand-year calendar with only one day marked on it. It is marked “TODAY”.

Seriousness is an accident of time. It consists of putting too high a value on time. In eternity there is no time. Eternity is a moment, just long enough for a joke

his voice was centuries old

The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!

I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and in heaven I will reflect upon these early days, these days when it seemed God was down a dirt road, walking toward me. Years ago He was a swinging speck in the distance; now He is close enough I can hear His singing. Soon I will see the lines on His face.

Poets talk about "spots of time", but it is really the fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone.