J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

If you're truthful with yourself and others, forgiveness clears the path to righteousness, to grace. All we want is grace. We all want that light in our lives. And we can only get that when we go deep into truth.

I denied this for many, many years and years... but you cannot help but not see a little of my mother in the character of Edna.

For the most part, there's so much of me in my characters.

The rising and falling of the scales of pride and humility sustain the brooding mind as well as the alternations of desire and peace of the soul.

My father - I once asked him what was his greatest achievement. He said his greatest achievement was that he fought in five wars in the infantry, always on the front line, and never hurt anybody.

It's better to feel sorry for doing something bad than to feel superior for doing something good.

World War II made war reputable because it was a just war. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. You know how many other just wars there have been? Not many. And the guys I served with became my brothers. If it weren't for World War II, I'd now be the garden editor of The Indianapolis Star. I wouldn't have moved away.

I'm still suffering from shock from the last war. I was almost drafted! Luckily I was wounded while taking the physical. When I reached the psychiatrist, I said, Give me a gun, I'll wipe out the whole German Army in five minutes. He said, You're crazy! I said, Write it down!

Most of my friends' fathers had been in the war - either as soldiers or in some other capacity in the military. Whereas my father had not fought. He was older and he was in a business that was considered essential to the wartime effort - the wire business - and, of course, I was so young I didn't understand any of this.

I wish that George W. Bush had gone to Vietnam, because he would have seen history in a different light. He would've experienced it in a different light because I don't think he understood the nature of war.

My father fought in World War I and single-handedly destroyed the Germans' line of communication. He ate their pigeon.

I hate to say it, but I had a great time in World War II.

See yourself as you really are. Listen to what none of your leaders and representatives dares tell you: You are a "little, common man." Understand the double meaning of these words: "little" and "common." Don't run. Have the courage to look at yourself!

I must congratulate myself, in passing, for never having lost the ability to examine my conscience, never having lost the gift of finding myself wanting & defective. Why fear the criticism of others when you, yourself, are first out of the critical gate? If self-denigration is the race I am the winner, even before the starting gun. Collect the bets.

Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here's the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he would not need it.

If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and make a change.

I'm less certain now but kinder.

Aquamen is unique in the sense that he does it without ego. He doesn't always have to be right. He's made a lot of mistakes, and he really takes those to heart.

I don't know what to say about myself. I don't know myself (laughs). People say my humility but I believe we're all humble in our own way. I try to stay close to my family and friends.

A great nation is like a great man:When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.Having realized it, he admits it.Having admitted it, he corrects it.He considers those who point out his faultsas his most benevolent teachers.He thinks of his enemyas the shadow that he himself casts.

I have sounded the very base-string of humility.

There is more value in a little study of humility and in a single act of it than in all the knowledge in the world.

I made as many mistakes as anybody else. I sound as if I'm an egomaniac, and I suppose in some ways I'm filled with hubris because I know how good I am at certain things. But other things, I can't do at all. I can't draw.

May Allah have mercy on him who sends me my faults as a present.

Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, but graciously to know I am no better.