J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

We are truth-speakers, we men of Gondor. We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt. "Not if I found it on the highway would I take it," I said. Even if I were such a man as to desire this thing, and even though I knew not clearly what this thing was when I spoke, still I should take those words as a vow, and be held by them.

J. R. R. Tolkien

• Desire
• Perform
• Highway
• Truth-speakers

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Quotes to Explore

• I understand the desire to write and read about the death of publishing. It's a perversely and universally appealing topic.

  

  Patrick deWitt
  • Death
  • Desire
  • Write

• I've never been married and I've no more desire to be married now than I ever have. I hate bureaucracy and I am not religious.

  

  Francesca Annis
  • Desire
  • Religious
  • Married

• It is quite common to meet people that live a few kilometers away from Mexico and that have never been there. We need to revive on many levels an illustrious desire to get to know the world, to learn another language, to understand and create empathy with people that live a few kilometers away from us. It's never late to do this.

  

  Gael Garcia Bernal
  • People
  • World
  • Live

• War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.

  

  Napoleon Hill
  • War
  • Man
  • Desire

• Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

  

  Oscar Wilde
  • Art
  • Desire
  • Problems

• I can only say that I myself wrote always as I wished, without a tremendous desire to find the latest thing possible.

  

  Samuel Barber
  • Desire
  • Myself
  • Find

• My relationship to food is that of an acrophobe to a bridge. Unease masks a desire to jump.

  

  Dana Goodyear
  • Food
  • Relationship
  • Desire

• I loved living and breathing theatre so much that I decided I had to find a way to bring my desire to act and my ability to support myself together. I'd run through the possibilities in Washington, so that meant moving to New York.

  

  Karen Allen
  • Together
  • Support
  • Desire

• I skate just to satisfy my own desire and not care about other people's desire for me to do well.

  

  Patrick Chan
  • People
  • Me
  • Desire

• My art springs from my desire to have things in the world which would otherwise never be there.

  

  Carl Andre
  • World
  • Art
  • Desire

• The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

  

  Tacitus
  • Great
  • Desire
  • Safety

• If you desire ease, forsake learning.

  

  Nagarjuna
  • You
  • Desire
  • Learning

• Maybe a thing that you do not like is really in your interest. It is possible that a thing that you may desire may be against your interest.

  

  Abu Bakr
  • May
  • Desire
  • Possible

• There's so much of a desire in the entertainment industry for newness, a desire to build somebody up and then treat them as old news within six months. I think you'd be naive if you didn't try to hold on to your own way of doing things.

  

  Felicity Jones
  • Up
  • Think
  • Desire

• My desire to be a physician had a lot to do with that sense of medicine as a ministry of healing, not just a science. And not even just a science and an art, but also a calling, also a ministry.

  

  Abraham Verghese
  • Art
  • Science
  • Desire

• I never had a desire to be famous... I was fat. I didn't know any fat famous actresses... You know, once a fat kid, always a fat kid. Because you always think that you just look a little bit wrong or a little bit different from everyone else. And I still sort of have that.

  

  Kate Winslet
  • Different
  • Know
  • Desire

• I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.

  

  Abraham Lincoln
  • Think
  • Desire
  • Slavery

• Every actor's deepest desire is to reach a huge audience. So, I don't look down upon commercial cinema... there's a beauty in it that you understand sooner or later.

  

  Randeep Hooda
  • Desire
  • Beauty
  • Down

• The ocean twitched like a vast cloth spread over snakes.

  

  Annie Proulx
  • Ocean

• Blepsidemus: There is no honest man! not one, that can resist the attraction of gold! (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)

  

  Aristophanes
  • Gold

• Boxing should probably be banned. But until then, I'm a big fan.

  

  Sam Simon
  • Boxing
  • Big
  • Then

• We are truth-speakers, we men of Gondor. We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt. "Not if I found it on the highway would I take it," I said. Even if I were such a man as to desire this thing, and even though I knew not clearly what this thing was when I spoke, still I should take those words as a vow, and be held by them.

  

  J. R. R. Tolkien
  • Desire
  • Perform
  • Highway