Gondor! Gondor, between the Mountains and the Sea!
West Wind blew there; the light upon the Silver Tree
Fell like bright rain in gardens of the Kings of old.
O proud walls! White towers! O winged crown and throne of gold!
O Gondor, Gondor! Shall Men behold the Silver Tree,
Or West Wind blow again between the Mountains and the Sea?
The Lord of the Rings
Aragorn's Song of Gondor, Chapter 'The
Riders of Rohan'. |
You may say this to Théoden son of Thengel: open war
lies before him, with Sauron or against him. None may live now
as they have lived, and few shall keep what they call their
own. Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are
they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men.
It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood
as in his own house.
The Lord of the Rings
Aragorn to Éothain, Chapter 'The
Riders of Rohan'. |
Not we but those who come after will make the legends of our
time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend,
though you tread it under the light of day.
The Lord of the Rings
Aragorn to Éomer, Chapter 'The Riders
of Rohan'. |
[Éomer]: "How shall a man judge what to do in
such times?"
"As he ever has judged," said Aragorn. "Good
and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one
thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is
a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as
in his own house."
The Lord of the Rings
Chapter 'The Riders of Rohan'. |
"The counsel of Gandalf was not founded on foreknowledge
of safety, for himself or for others," said Aragorn.
"There are some things that it is better to begin than
to refuse, even though the end may be dark."
The Lord of the Rings
Chapter 'The Riders of Rohan'.
|
Out of the shadows the hobbits peeped, gazing back down the
slope:little furtive figures that in the dim light looked
like elf-children in the deeps of time peering out of the
Wild Wood in wonder at their first dawn.
The Lord of the Rings
Chapter 'The Uruk-Hai'.
|
Do not be hasty, that is my motto.
The Lord of the Rings
Treebeard, Chapter 'Treebeard'. |
Learn now the lore of Living Creatures!
First name the four, the free peoples:
Eldest of all, the elf-children;
Dwarf the delver, dark are his houses;
Ent the earthborn, old as mountains;
Man the mortal, master of horses.
The Lord of the Rings
The Long List of the Ents from Treebeard,
Chapter 'Treebeard'. |
Not so hasty! You call yourselves hobbits? But you should
not go telling just anybody. You'll be letting out your own
right names if you're not careful.
The Lord of the Rings
Treebeard, Chapter 'Treebeard'. |
My name is growing all the time, and I've lived a very long,
long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the
story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old
Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes
a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say
anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say,
and to listen to.
The Lord of the Rings
Treebeard, Chapter 'Treebeard'. |
Curse him, root and branch! Many of those trees were my friends
creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of
their own that are lost for ever now. And there are wastes of
stump and bramble where once there were singing groves. I have
been idle. I have let things slip. It must stop!
The Lord of the Rings
Treebeard on Saruman cutting down the trees,
Chapter 'Treebeard'. |
To Isengard! Though Isengard be ringed and barred with doors
of stone;
Though Isengard be strong and hard, as cold as stone and bare
as bone,
We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door;
For bole and bough are burning now, the furnace roars - we go
to war!
To land of gloom with tramp of doom, with roll of drum, we come,
we come;
To Isengard with doom we come!
With doom we come, with doom we come!
The Lord of the Rings
Ents' Marching Song, Chapter 'Treebeard'. |
"Yes, I am white now," said Gandalf. "Indeed
I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have
been."
The Lord of the Rings
Chapter 'The White Rider'. |
I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose
the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations
needed by the young are wearying.
The Lord of the Rings
Gandalf, Chapter 'The White Rider'. |
He is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly
appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking
to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to
cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought
that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring
itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.
The Lord of the Rings
Gandalf talking about The Enemy, Chapter
'The White Rider'. |
The Dark Lord has Nine. But we have One, mightier than they:
the White Rider. He has passed through the fire and the abyss,
and they shall fear him. We will go where he leads.
The Lord of the Rings
Aragorn, Chapter 'The White Rider'. |
I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and
broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin. Then
darkness took me; and I strayed out of thought and time, and
I wandered far on roads that I will not tell. Naked I was sent
back for a brief time, until my task is done. And naked
I lay upon the mountain-top.
The Lord of the Rings
Gandalf, Chapter 'The White Rider'. |
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that
was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the
meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?
The Lord of the Rings
Lament of the Rohirrim, Chapter 'The King
of the Golden Hall'. |
We are all friends here. Or should be; for the laughter of
Mordor will be our only reward, if we quarrel.
The Lord of the Rings
Gandalf, Chapter 'The King of the Golden
Hall'. |
Arise now, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Dire deeds awake, dark is it eastward.
Let horse be bridled, horn be sounded!
Forth Eorlingas!
The Lord of the Rings
Call-to-Arms of the Rohirrim, Chapter 'The
King of the Golden Hall'. |
Strange are the ways of men.
The Lord of the Rings
Gimli to Legolas, Chapter 'The Road to
Isengard'. |
I have lived to see strange days. Long we have tended our
beasts and our fields, built our houses, wrought our tools,
or ridden away to help in the wars of Minas Tirith. And that
we called the life of Men, the way of the world. We cared little
for what lay beyond the borders of our land. Songs we have that
tell of these things, but we are forgetting them, teaching them
only to children, as a careless custom. And now the songs have
come down among us out of strange places, and walk visible under
the Sun.
The Lord of the Rings
King Théoden, Chapter 'The Road
to Isengard'. |
A strong place and wonderful was Isengard, and long it had
been beautiful. But Saruman had slowly shaped it to his shifting
purposes, and made it better, as he thought, being deceived-for
all those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his
former wisdom, and which fondly he imagined were his own, came
but from Mordor; so that what he made was naught, only a little
copy, a child's model or a slave's flattery, of that vast fortress,
armoury, prison, furnace of great power, Barad-dûr, the
Dark Tower, which suffered no rival, and laughed at flattery,
biding its time, secure in its pride and its immeasurable strength.
The Lord of the Rings
Chapter 'The Road to Isengard'. |
"So that is the King of Rohan," said Pippin in an
undertone. "A fine old fellow. Very polite."
The Lord of the Rings
Chapter 'The Road to Isengard'. |
One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters.
You did rightly.
The Lord of the Rings
Aragorn, Chapter 'Flotsam and Jetsam'. |
Though Isengard be strong and hard, as cold as stone and bare
as bone,
We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door!
The Lord of the Rings
War Chant of the Ents Chapter 'Flotsam
and Jetsam'. |
The guest who has escaped from the roof, will think twice
before he comes back in by the door.
The Lord of the Rings
Gandalf to Saruman, Chapter 'The Voice
of Saruman'. |
"The treacherous are ever distrustful," answered
Gandalf wearily.
The Lord of the Rings
To Saruman, Chapter 'The Voice of Saruman'.
|
Often does hatred hurt itself!
The Lord of the Rings
Gandalf, Chapter 'The Voice of Saruman'. |
Oft evil will shall evil mar.
The Lord of the Rings
Théoden, Chapter 'The Palantír'. |
Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three,
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing sea?
Seven stars and seven stones
And one white tree.
The Lord of the Rings
A Rhyme of Lore sung by Gandalf, Chapter
'The Palantír'. |
There is nothing that Sauron cannot turn to evil uses.
The Lord of the Rings
Gandalf, Chapter 'The Palantír'. |
Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we
possess ourselves.
The Lord of the Rings
Gandalf, Chapter 'The Palantír'. |
Shadowfax tossed his head and cried aloud, as if a trumpet
had summoned him to battle. Then he sprang forward. Fire flew
from his feet; night rushed over him.
As he fell slowly into sleep, Pippin had a strange feeling:
he and Gandalf were still as stone, seated upon the statue
of a running horse, while the world rolled away beneath his
feet with a great noise of wind.
The Lord of the Rings
The great grey horse bearing Gandalf
and Pippin across the realm of Rohan to the capital city of
Gondor, Chapter 'The Palantír'.
|