J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes

Ultimately we've only got humanity to work with. It's only clay we've got.

J. R. R. Tolkien

• Work
• Humanity
• Clay

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Quotes to Explore

• I think I was lucky I got into art college. That's what saved me.

  

  Sam Taylor-Johnson
  • Think
  • Me
  • College

• The only thing worse than an active conscience is one that's retroactive.

  

  Harold Coffin
  • Conscience
  • Worse
  • Active

• I've always been proud that my name stands for peace.

  

  Paloma Picasso
  • Peace
  • Proud
  • Name

• I studied the lives of jazz singers who would tour Europe, and... what I learned was life was big ride for them. They'd seen the dark side of humanity... but touring the world playing jazz, it was a truly carefree way of living. A great escapism, if you like.

  

  Gary Carr
  • Life
  • World
  • Great

• Culture is a little like dropping an Alka-Seltzer into a glass - you don't see it, but somehow it does something.

  

  Hans Magnus Enzensberger
  • Culture
  • You
  • See

• In my next life, I want to be a housecat. Naps all the time!

  

  Laura Anne Gilman
  • Life
  • Time
  • Want

• He's really sort of the devil. He's completely emotionally detached. He has no empathy. You find that in psychopaths. It's about power with Voldemort. It's an aphrodisiac for him. Power makes him feel alive.

  

  Ralph Fiennes
  • Power
  • Devil
  • Empathy

• The most important thing for me is to walk the little alleys of the city, to find the little alcove where someone is cooking something, and just watch them do it. That's my idea of fun.

  

  Yotam Ottolenghi
  • Important
  • Fun
  • City

• Time can be an ally or an enemy. What it becomes depends entirely upon you, your goals, and your determination to use every available minute.

  

  Zig Ziglar
  • Time
  • Enemy
  • Goals

• For me, to just have my own shoe is unbelievable. As a kid, you see Jordans and wonder what that feels like to have your own shoe, and the fact that I have one is really surreal.

  

  Calvin Johnson
  • Me
  • Wonder
  • Shoe

• Acting doesn't have to be threadbare misery all the time.

  

  Fiona Shaw
  • Time
  • Acting
  • Misery

• With all of their benefits, and there are many, one of the things I regret about e-books is that they have taken away the necessity of trawling foreign bookshops or the shelves of holiday houses to find something to read. I've come across gems and stinkers that way, and both can be fun.

  

  Joanne Rowling
  • Fun
  • Taken
  • Regret

• Horses and horsepower alike are about status and being cool.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Cool
  • Being
  • Status

• If I'm saying a universal truth, but maybe it's something that people don't feel comfortable saying... It's a strange take, but at the same time, what you're hitting on is kind of right. You can relate. That's the heart of comedy. You have to have a point of view. You gotta commit. And the more you commit to it, sometimes the funnier it gets.

  

  Vince Vaughn
  • People
  • Time
  • Heart

• The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses.

  

  Van Wyck Brooks
  • War
  • Man
  • Creative

• We sat around and I fed them barbecue and whiskey. And pretty soon everyone started to compete with each other on the guitars. It seemed the more everyone drank and ate, the more everyone got into it.

  

  Gary Allan
  • Pretty
  • Everyone
  • Whiskey

• I want to be like Robin Williams, really. It's all the different characters he does, all the different voices.

  

  Karen Gillan
  • Different
  • Want
  • Like

• This is very intriguing to think we should audit the Fed, but I discovered that probably if they audited the Fed, it would get a clean bill because it's undoubtedly doing exactly what it's supposed to do according to the law.

  

  G. Edward Griffin
  • Think
  • Law
  • Doing

• I'm not really worried about anybody or anything. I think I have a lot to offer. It's just, with your rookie year, your body, it's just a lot. It may seem foolish, all those dunks and stuff: they look cool, but it takes a toll on your body, for sure.

  

  Jaylen Brown
  • May
  • Cool

• It's kind of a subversive act to tell a story of a woman past a certain age, to develop a four-hour movie based on a marriage and a story of two people past middle age.

  

  Frances McDormand
  • People
  • Movie
  • Age

• The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball.

  

  Bill Veeck
  • True
  • Spring

• A profession is a body of men who voluntarily measure their work by a higher standard than their clients demand. To be professionally acceptable, a policy must be sound as well as salable. Wildlife administration, in this respect, is not yet a profession.

  

  Aldo Leopold
  • Work
  • Men
  • Respect

• There was always this idea that I would work on Shakespeare and some of the other classics, but it never came to be.

  

  Joel Grey
  • Work

• Ultimately we've only got humanity to work with. It's only clay we've got.

  

  J. R. R. Tolkien
  • Work
  • Humanity
  • Clay