J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

No man, with a man's heart in him gets far on his way without some bitter, soul-searching disappointment. Happy is he who is brave enough to push on to another stage of the journey.

May you find the courage to walk your own path. May you dare to venture into the uncharted domains of your own heart. Here is my advice to you, the adventurers - fear will show you the way; walk steadily toward it, for otherwise you will always be running. Have trust & faith to guide you like a torch piercing the darkness. Do not believe & do not deny, but find out for yourself - for there is no truth but the one you have earned in your own experience.

Take heart, and do not let disappointment or shame stop you from moving forward. The true outcome of life is only apparent at the very end.

Sometimes we fall, sometimes we stumble, but we can't stay down. We can't allow life to beat us down. Everything happens for a reason, and it builds character in us, and it tells us what we are about and how strong we really are when we didn't think we could be that strong.

Revelations come when you're in the thick of it, pitting yourself up against something larger than yourself.

I've learned that life is very tricky business: Each person needs to find what they want to do in life and not be dissuaded when people question them.

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.

Everybody has a different journey. Everybody has a different path, and you don't really know what to expect. All you know is to just keep plugging away, and you hope something will come through and something will happen.

Ah, great it is to believe the dream as we stand in youth by the starry stream; but a greater thing is to fight life through and say at the end, the dream is true!

Sometimes the future that you imagined to be the most dreadful, turns out to be the future that compels you to reach down very deeply into your being to uncover reservoirs of strength and perserverance that you had no idea were there.

Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

I am learning that in life it is OK to travel in darkness, not knowing what your next move is.

As I look back and connect the dots, all I want to do is go back and hug my scared young self, who took a lot of steps out of impulse not knowing what will happen. So many nights of disappointment, so many others of being disillusioned where I would have just gone ahead and quit it all - I still do not know what kept me hanging in there.

What I've found is that every time you have that uncertainty, if you face it, walk through it, you grow as an individual and gain confidence.

At various stages in my life, I could have stopped, or took the long rest. For some reason, my heart told me otherwise. I just kept going. Half of the time, I wasn't sure where I was heading. The other half, I was probably taking the wrong turns. No matter.

it is only courage on the path itself that makes the path appear

A stout heart may be ruined in fortune but not in spirit.

We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are.

How was I to know that I'd be ok? I thought I'd lose it all when you walked away. How was I to know that I'd be this strong? I had what it takes all along. How was I to know?

This hill though high I covent ascend; The difficulty will not me offend; For I perceive the way of life lies here. Come, pluck up, heart; let's neither faint nor fear.

I am a series of small victories and large defeats and I am as amazed as any other that I have gotten from there to here.

Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill.

You have to be willing to endure the discomfort, the doubts and unknowing, you somehow find the courage to walk through your doubts and the difficult times because you are living the life you are meant to live.

You never know if you can actually do something against all odds until you actually do it.