J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

A tree is an incomprehensible mystery.

I'm up and down and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out; Though hundreds have employed their leisure, They never yet could find my measure.

More powerful than God, more evil than the Devil; the poor have it, the rich lack it, and if you eat it you die?

We are caught inside a mystery, veiled in an enigma, locked inside a riddle

The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Life is a mystery; that means it cannot be solved. And when all efforts to solve it prove futile, the mystery dawns upon you. Then the doors are open; then you are invited. As a knower, nobody enters the divine; as a child, ignorant, not knowing at all- the mystery embraces you. With a knowing mind you are clever, not innocent. Innocence is the door.

We take comfort, however, that mystery is not a synonym for contradiction.

No one comes from the earth like grass. We come like trees. We all have roots.

Mystery is the wisdom of blockheads.

All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle...is another riddle.

I and this mystery, here we stand.

Cut off my head, and singular I am, Cut off my tail, and plural I appear; Although my middle's left, there's nothing there! What is my head cut off? A sounding sea; What is my tail cut off? A rushing river; And in their mingling depths I fearless play, Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.

In the biggest and the smallest I sleep but at the same place I stay.

Alive without breath, As cold as death; Never thirsty, ever drinking, All in mail never clinking.

Riddle me this, riddle me that. Who's afraid of the big black bat?

I see my trees repair their boughs.

I have always been very interested in landscape... I find that all natural forms are a source of unending interest - tree trunks, the growth of branches from the trunk, each finding its own individual air-space.

We gather perfect fruit from perfect trees.

Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, "Come and find out".

I measure myself Against a tall tree I find that I am much taller, For I reach right up to the sun With my eye; And I reach to the shore of the sea With my ear. Nevertheless, I dislike The way the ants crawl In and out of my shadow.

Un-dish-cover the fish, or dishcover the riddle.

There are more riddles in a stone than in a philosopher's head

Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.