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

by J.R.R. Tolkien

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.

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

‘Short cuts make long delays,’

Sleepiness seemed to be creeping out of the ground and up their legs, and falling softly out of the air upon their heads and eyes.

‘You’ve found yourselves again, out of the deep water. Clothes are but little loss, if you escape from drowning.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.’

Glorfindel smiled. ‘I doubt very much,’ he said, ‘if your friends would be in danger if you were not with them! The pursuit would follow you and leave us in peace, I think. It is you, Frodo, and that which you bear that brings us all in peril.’

‘But talking would stop me thinking and wondering, which are quite as tiring,’

The might of Elrond is in wisdom not in weapons, it is said.

White!” he sneered. “It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.”

Valour needs first strength, and then a weapon.

For nothing is evil in the beginning.

‘I will take the Ring,’ he said, ‘though I do not know the way.’

The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have any power over the present.

‘Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,’ said Gimli. ‘Maybe,’ said Elrond, ‘but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.’

‘Look not too far ahead! But go now with good hearts!

For many sunless days an icy blast came from the Mountains in the east, and no garment seemed able to keep out its searching fingers.

Behind them the sinking Sun filled the cool western sky with glimmering gold.

‘Fly, you fools!’ he cried, and was gone.

He turned to the Company. ‘We must do without hope,’ he said. ‘At least we may yet be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more! Come! We have a long road, and much to do.’

‘It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish,

When the day came the mood of the world about them had become soft and sad.