J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.

It's a fact that people who are in a weakened position, whether physically or mentally, have this perception of the outer world as threatening. Everything that is unexpected or unknown is seen as a potential danger.

Grown-ups are afraid for children. It's not children who are afraid.

There is, to be sure, sometimes only a small difference between being alert to possible danger and allowing oneself to become terrified to the point of paralysis by seeming or imagined portents.

The fear of death is far greater than the death itself. But the fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all!

It seemed his demon couldn't tell the physical difference between when he was in danger and when he was "in" Danger.

There is a huge difference between a dog that is going to eat you in your mind and an actual dog that's going to eat you.

The absent danger greater still appears less fears he who is near the thing he fears.

Don't fight the rabbits. If you fight the rabbits, the elephants are going to kill you.

I have never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from other men. There is not much harm in a lion. He has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no gentility; in short, no reason for destroying anything that he does not want to eat

Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible.

Nothing appeases an enraged elephant so much as the sight of a little lamb.

I am afraid if there is anything to be afraid of. A precipice cannot hurt you. Lions and tigers can. The streets of New York I consider more dangerous than the Matterhorn to a thoroughly competent and careful climber.

I think they were scared of me because I was different.

The female of all species are most dangerous when they appear to retreat.

What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not?

Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.

Women have an incredible ability to pick up on emotional signals. For example, there are some wolves that are so clever they have learned to dress up like sheep. Man says, "Looks like a sheep. Talks like a sheep." Woman says, "Ain't no sheep!"

Speak of a wolf and you see his tail!

You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature. You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; but do not free him from his stripes.

Men's minds tend to fear more keenly those things that are absent.

I remember lying in the snow, a small red spot of warm going cold, surrounded by wolves.

Cats do not abide by the laws of nature.

This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage, snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.