Quotes by Philologists - Page 14

To crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face
J.R.R. Tolkien
For it is now to us itself ancient; and yet its maker was telling of things already old and weighted with regret, and he expended his art in making keen that touch upon the heart which sorrows have that are both poignant and remote.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Ultimately, nobody can get more out of things, including books, than he already knows.
Friedrich Nietzsche
How can we “find ourselves” again? How can man “know himself”? He is a thing obscure and veiled. If the hare has seven skins, man can cast from him seventy times seven skins, and not be able to say: “Here you truly are; there is skin no more.”Also this digging into oneself, this straight, violent descent into the pit of one’s being, is a troublesome and dangerous business to start. You may easily take such hurt, that no doctor can heal you. And what is the point: since everything bears witness to our essence — our friendships and enmities, our looks and greetings, our memories and forgetfulnesses, our books and our writing!
Friedrich Nietzsche
The overman...Who has organized the chaos of his passions, given style to his character, and become creative. Aware of life's terrors, he affirms life without resentment.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The stars are far brighterThan gems without measure,The moon is far whiterThan silver in treasure;The fire is more shiningOn hearth in the gloamingThan gold won by mining,So why go a-roaming?
J.R.R. Tolkien
A promise to love someone forever, then, means, 'As long as I love you I will render unto you the actions of love; if I no longer love you, you will continue to receive the same actions from me, if for other motives.' Thus the illusion remains in the minds of one's fellow men that the love is unchanged and still the same.
Friedrich Nietzsche
If you would be powerful pretend to be powerful.
Home Tooke
They made for his noise far quicker than he had expected. They were frightfully angry. Quite apart from the stones no spider has ever like being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course, is insulting to anybody.
J.R.R. Tolkien
We ought to face our destiny with courage.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. the will to a system is a lack of integrity.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.Aragorn, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
J.R.R. Tolkien
Our way is upward, from the species across to the super-species. But the degenerate mind which says ‘All for me’ is a horror to us.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I have found that it is the small everyday deed of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love." ~ Gandalf (J. R. R. Tolkein ~ The Hobbit)
J.R.R. Tolkien
My Ego taught me a new pride, I teach it to men: No longer to bury the head in the sand of heavenly things, but to carry it freely, an earthly head which creates meaning for the earth!
Friedrich Nietzsche
There are many things in the deep waters; and seas and lands may change. And it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one.
J.R.R. Tolkien
It seemed like all the way to tomorrow and over it to the days beyond.
J.R.R. Tolkien
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
Friedrich Nietzsche
to have to combat one’s instincts—that is the formula for decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness and instinct are one.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
Friedrich Nietzsche
This book belongs to the most rare of men. Perhaps not one of them is yet alive. First the day after tomorrow must come for me. Some men are born posthumously.
Friedrich Nietzsche
At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Yes, I am white now,' said Gandalf. 'Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.
J.R.R. Tolkien
When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us.
Friedrich Nietzsche
He did not falter, as long as there was a path that led toward his goal.
J.R.R. Tolkien
it is horrible being all alone.
J.R.R. Tolkien
There is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired.
Friedrich Nietzsche
My world has just become perfect, midnight is also noonday, pain is also joy, a curse is also a blessing, the night is also a sun – be gone, or you will learn: a wise man is also a fool.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.
J.R.R. Tolkien
What is happening to me happens to all fruits that grow ripe. It is the honey in my veins that makes my blood thicker, and my soul quieter.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Weariness that wants to reach the ultimate with one leap, with one fatal leap, a poor ignorant weariness that does not want to want any more: this created all gods and afterworlds.
Friedrich Nietzsche
But it is not your own Shire,’ said Gildor. ‘Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.
J.R.R. Tolkien
To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one's own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there
Friedrich Nietzsche
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror....
J.R.R. Tolkien
It was suffering and incapacity that created all afterworlds - this, and that brief madness of bliss which is experienced only by those who suffer deeply. Weariness that wants to reach the ultimate with one leap, with one fatal leap, a poor ignorant weariness that does not want to want any more: this created all gods and afterworlds.
Friedrich Nietzsche
It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Business people - Your business - is your greatest prejudice: it ties you to your locality, to the company you keep, to the inclinations you feel. Diligent in business - but indolent in spirit, content with your inadequacy, and with the cloak of duty hung over this contentment: that is how you live, that is how you want your children to live!
Friedrich Nietzsche
How good music and bad reasons sound when one marches against an enemy.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back.
J.R.R. Tolkien
But of bliss and glad life there is little to be said, before it ends; as works fair and wonderful, while they still endure for eyes to see, are ever their own record, and only when they are in peril or broken for ever do they pass into song.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Frodo raised his head, and then stood up. Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else knew about it was beside the purpose. He took his staff in one hand and the phial in his other. When he saw that the clear light was already welling through his fingers, he thrust it into his bosom and held it against his heart. Then turning from the city of Morgul, now no more than a grey glimmer across a dark gulf, he prepared to take the upward road.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Far over the misty mountains coldTo dungeons deep and caverns oldWe must away ere break of dayTo seek the pale enchanted gold.The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,While hammers fell like ringing bellsIn places deep, where dark things sleep,In hollow halls beneath the fells.For ancient king and elvish lordThere many a gleaming golden hoardThey shaped and wrought, and light they caughtTo hide in gems on hilt of sword.On silver necklaces they strungThe flowering stars, on crowns they hungThe dragon-fire, in twisted wireThey meshed the light of moon and sun.Far over the misty mountains coldTo dungeons deep and caverns oldWe must away, ere break of day,To claim our long-forgotten gold.Goblets they carved there for themselvesAnd harps of gold; where no man delvesThere lay they long, and many a songWas sung unheard by men or elves.The pines were roaring on the height,The wind was moaning in the night.The fire was red, it flaming spread;The trees like torches blazed with light.The bells were ringing in the daleAnd men looked up with faces pale;The dragon's ire more fierce than fireLaid low their towers and houses frail.The mountain smoked beneath the moon;The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.They fled their hall to dying fallBeneath his feet, beneath the moon.Far over the misty mountains grimTo dungeons deep and caverns dimWe must away, ere break of day,To win our harps and gold from him!
J.R.R. Tolkien
Pure logic is the impossibility by means of which science is maintained.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I love the great despisers, because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.
J.R.R. Tolkien
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Goodbye, master, my dear! Forgive your Sam. He'll come back to this spot when the job's done - if he manages it. And then he'll not leave you again. Rest you quiet till I come; and may no foul creature come anigh you! And if the Lady could hear me and give me one wish, I would wish to come back and find you again. Good bye!
J.R.R. Tolkien
The abdomen is the reason why man does not easily take himself for a god.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nothing is needed more than truth, and in relation to it everything else has only second-rate value."This unconditional will to truth—what is it? Is it the will not to allow oneself to be deceived? Or is it the will not to deceive? For the will to truth could be interpreted in the second way, too—if only the special case "I do not want to deceive myself" is subsumed under the generalization "I do not want to deceive." But why not deceive?But why not allow oneself to be deceived?Note that the reasons for the former principle belong to an altogether different realm from those for the second. One does not want to allow oneself to be deceived because one assumes that it is harmful, dangerous, calamitous to be deceived. In this sense, science would be a long-range prudence, a caution, a utility; but one could object in all fairness: How is that? Is wanting not to allow oneself to be deceived really less harmful, less dangerous, less calamitous? What do you know in advance of the character of existence to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of the unconditionally mistrustful or of the unconditionally trusting?
Friedrich Nietzsche
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A traitor may betray himself and do good he does not intend.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Virtue is under certain circumstances merely an honorable form of stupidity: who could be ill-disposed toward it on that account? And this kind of virtue has not been outlived even today. A kind of sturdy peasant simplicity, which, however, is possible in all classes and can be encountered only with respect and a smile, believes even today that everything is in good hands, namely in the "hands of God"; and when it maintains this proportion with the same modest certainty as it would that two and two make four, we others certainly refrain from contradicting. Why disturb THIS pure foolishness? Why darken it with our worries about man, people, goal, future? And even if we wanted to do it, we could not. They project their own honorable stupidity and goodness into the heart of things (the old God, deus myops, still lives among them!); we others — we read something else into the heart of things: our own enigmatic nature, our contradictions, our deeper, more painful, more mistrustful wisdom.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Still am I the richest and most to be envied - I, the lonesomest one!
Friedrich Nietzsche
Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse. (What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.)
Friedrich Nietzsche
The desire for a strong faith is not the proof of a strong faith, rather the opposite. If one has it one may permit oneself the beautiful luxury of skepticism: one is secure enough, fixed enough for it.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Few can foresee whither their road will lead them, till they come to its end.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Then the dwarves forgot their joy and their confident boasts of a moment before and cowered down in fright. Smaug was still to be reckoned with. It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Just as little as a reader today reads all of the individual words (let alone syllables) on a page—rather he picks about five words at random out of twenty and "guesses" at the meaning that probably belongs to these five words—just as little do we see a tree exactly and completely with reference to leaves, twigs, color, and form; it is so very much easier for us to simply improvise some approximation of a tree. Even in the midst of the strangest experiences we will still do the same: we make up the major part of the experience and can scarcely be forced not to contemplate some event as its "inventors." All this means: basically and from time immemorial we are—accustomed to lying. Or to put it more virtuously and hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly: one is much more of an artist than one knows.
Friedrich Nietzsche