J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes
Without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless.
Quotes to Explore
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A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world.
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It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness.
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Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.
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Major religions are examples of 'noble lies' aimed at uplifting human stature.
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Getting a record deal is a meaningless thing now.
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In judging of a beautiful statue, the aesthetic faculty is absolutely and completely gratified by the splendid curves of those marble lips that are dumb to our complaint, the noble modelling of those limbs that are powerless to help us.
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Have all the hopes of ages come to naught? Is life no more with noble meaning fraught?
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When I was younger, not being accepted made me enraged, but now, I am not inclined to dismantle my history. If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes-and we become attached to the heroic strain in our personal history.
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The art schools... you get young kids doing the most vile and meaningless crap. I think they believe every bit of it.
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Do nothing because it is righteous or praiseworthy or noble to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do and which you cannot do in any other way.
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The study of law is sublime, and its practice vulgar.
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The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.
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Without a soundtrack, human interaction is meaningless.
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We could say that compassion is the ultimate attitude of wealth: an anti-poverty attitude, a war on want. It contains all sorts of heroic, juicy, positive, visionary, expansive qualities. And it implies larger scale thinking, a freer and more expansive way of relating to yourself and the world.
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I count this thing to be grandly true: That a noble deed is a step toward God.
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The task of history is to hold out for reprobation every evil word and deed, and to hold out for praise every great and noble word and deed.
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Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
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Medicine is of all the Arts the most noble; but, owing to the ignorance of those who practice it, and of those who, inconsiderately, form a judgment of them, it is at present behind all the arts.
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Alone, and without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.
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As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg.
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Without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless.
