J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

He [Bilbo] fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.

A lot of people hate heroes. I was criticized for portraying people who are brave, honest, loving, intelligent. That was called weak and sentimental. People who dismiss all real emotion as sentimentality are cowards. They’re afraid to commit themselves, and so they remain ‘cool’ for the rest of their lives, until they’re dead—then they’re really cool.

The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared.

But you can’t put fight into a man’s guts if he hasn’t any fight in him. There are some of us so cowardly that you can’t ever make heroes of us, not even if you frighten us to death. We know too much, maybe. There are some of us who don’t live in the moment, who live a little ahead, or a little behind.

For indeed you have a choice. You can flee and hide, and wait to be found. You can live out your days in terror, without meaning. Or you can take the harder choice, and you can save them.

The brave man, the real hero, quakes with terror, sweats, feels his very bowels betray him, and in spite of this moves forward to do the act he dreads.

They say you never know who's the real hero and who's the real coward until you're looking death in the face. I've always been afraid of plenty of things, but fear isn't what makes you a coward. It's how depraved your heart becomes when fear gets pumped through it.

Heaven help the man who fights his fear.

We Call Them the Brave who likely were reluctant to be brave.

Heroes are people who face down their fears. It is that simple.

But I am the real Strider, fortunately. I am Aragorn son of Arathorn; and if by life or death I can save you, I will.

All men have fears, but the brave put down their fears and go forward, sometimes to death, but always to victory.

Do something today you've been afraid to do. A decision based on fear is the wrong decision.

Perhaps those, who, trembling most, maintain a dignity in their fate, are the bravest: resolution on reflection is real courage.

A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death.

I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority? Would you have had him wait till that time came?--till you and I came over to him?

Bravery is a mean state concerned with things that inspire confidence and with things fearful ... and leading us to choose danger and to face it, either because to do so is noble, or because not to do so is base. But to court death as an escape from poverty, or from love, or from some grievous pain, is no proof of bravery, but rather of cowardice.

You have to be afraid for it to count as bravery.

I'm a hero wid coward's legs, I'm a hero from the waist up.

Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she should find herself in a difficult position, so that she might have the pleasure of being as heroic as the occasion demanded.

To die in order to avoid the pains of poverty, love, or anything that is disagreeable, is not the part of a brave man, but of a coward.

There is nothing to fear except fear it's self.

She hadn't chosen the brave life. She'd chosen the small, fearful one.

Fear is such a weak emotion that’s why I despise it

War is an unmitigated evil. But it certainly does one good thing. It drives away fear and brings bravery to the surface.