"if an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi." -Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence(2003)

Quotable Quotes From LOTR

Some of my favorite quotes from The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R Tolkien) that i had painstakingly noted down while i was reading the series...


On Life:
"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."
-Gandalf to Frodo
"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."
-Bilbo's birthday speech.

"We live now upon an island amid many perils, and our hands are more often upon the bowstring than upon the harp."
-Haldir to Company in Lothlorien

"...and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread"
-Aragorn to Frodo.
"'Despair, or folly?' said Gandalf. 'It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope."
-Gandalf at the Counsel of Elrond.

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...and to them Mordor had been from childhood a name of evil, and yet unreal, a legend that had no part in their simple life; and now they walked like men in a hideous dream made true, and they understood not this war nor why fate should lead them to such a pass.
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He laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder: never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and texture of a tree's skin and of the life within it. He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself.
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On the World:
"The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out."
-Gildor to Frodo
'I have never been out of my own land before. And if I had known what the world outside was like, I don't think I should have had the heart to leave it.'
-Merry to Haldir.
"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."
-Haldir to Merry.
"I do not believe that the world about us will ever again be as it was of old, or the light of the Sun as it was aforetime."
-Merry to Haldir
...it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
-Gandalf to Imrahil
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On Elrond:
"The face of Elrond was ageless, neither old nor young, though in it was written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful. His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight, and upon it was set a circlet of silver; his eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of stars. Venerable he seemed as a king crowned with many winters, and yet hale as a tried warrior in the fulness of his strength."
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On Galadriel:
Young she was and yet not so. The braids of her dark hair were touched by no frost, her white arms and clear face were flawless and smooth, and the light of stars was in her bright eyes, grey as a cloudless night; yet queenly she looked, and thought and knowledge were in her glance, as of one who has known many things that the years bring. Above her brow her head was covered with a cap of silver lace netted with small gems, glittering white; but her soft grey raiment had no ornament save a girdle of leaves wrought in silver.
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On Lórien:
It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien there was no stain.
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On Man:
"..such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.'
-Elrond at the Counsel

and my favorite...
"It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise."
"Yet seldom do they fail of their seed," said Legolas. "And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli."
"And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess," said the Dwarf.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Saumitra, Nice to see a post after long time [another notable achievement would be, the rss feed is working now]
    Great quotes. I have always wanted to read this series given that I loved the 3 part movie. Now I am even more eager to read it. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey thanks ashish... you should read it. it's an awesome book!

    ReplyDelete

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