The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)

by J.R.R. Tolkien

I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Among the Wise I am the only one that goes in for hobbit-lore: an obscure branch of knowledge, but full of surprises. Soft as butter they can be, and yet sometimes as tough as old tree-roots. I think it likely that some would resist the Rings far longer than most of the Wise would believe. I don’t think you need worry about Bilbo.

For he gave it up in the end of his own accord: an important point.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

‘This is the Master-ring, the One Ring to rule them all. This is the One Ring that he lost many ages ago, to the great weakening of his power. He greatly desires it – but he must not get it.’

‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

‘He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved himself. He could not get rid of it. He had no will left in the matter.

Aragorn, the greatest traveller and huntsman of this age of the world.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

‘Coming, sir!’ came the answer from far within, followed soon by Sam himself, wiping his mouth. He had been saying farewell to the beer-barrel in the cellar.

The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.’

Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

‘Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

‘But where shall I find courage?’ asked Frodo. ‘That is what I chiefly need.’ ‘Courage is found in unlikely places,’ said Gildor. ‘Be of good hope!

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost;

Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.

For nothing is evil in the beginning.

‘Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?’

‘Just a plain hobbit you look,’ said Bilbo. ‘But there is more about you now than appears on the surface. Good luck to you!’

‘The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

In Rivendell there was memory of ancient things; in Lórien the ancient things still lived on in the waking world. Evil had been seen and heard there, sorrow had been known; the Elves feared and distrusted the world outside: wolves were howling on the wood’s borders: but on the land of Lórien no shadow lay.

‘Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth,’ he said, ‘and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me!’ And taking Frodo’s hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as living man.

‘Sleep in peace! Do not trouble your hearts overmuch with thought of the road tonight. Maybe the paths that you each shall tread are already laid before your feet, though you do not see them. Good night!’

Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror,