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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Throughout The Lord of the Rings, powerful characters who are good—Elrond, Gandalf, and Aragorn, among others—honor the free choices of those who are not as powerful as they are.
If we’re talking about bad magic—or black magic—then the words are woven so as to deceive people and contradict what it true.6 They’re lies. The most powerful lies are those that are the most deceptive, those that closely resemble truth but actually conceal evil.
his mastery has something to do with what he knows; but what difference does it make in the way he lives? It’s when we’re at home that we are truly ourselves.
In a flat world things grow in significance at the expense of other things, but in a vertically ordered world, things can freely be themselves, even when they are subject to others. Mastery does not equal ownership—even when people are subject to you.
The primary emotion in any bureaucracy, and the real thumbscrew of managerial control, is fear.
death is a gift from Illúvatar to his younger children, implying that something better is in store for them.
books about contemplatives usually don’t appeal to anyone but contemplatives, unless, that is, they record visions full of dragons and brimstone.
Our troubles, our daily struggles with evil, amount to a better story than one in which our troubles vanish with a casual wave of the Divine Hand.
People don’t have everything that they need before beginning a perilous quest. They must learn on the job. They begin with what they have and rise to the challenges they face along the way.
Chesterton’s point is that we already are somewhere strange and fascinating enough to satisfy anyone romantic enough to long for adventure. But do we see it?
