Frases de John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

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“Mesmo as aranhas mais caprichosas podem deixar um fio frouxo.”

“Geralmente o hóspede que não foi convidado acaba sendo a melhor companhia.”

“Não é sensato deixar um dragão fora dos teus cálculos se vives perto dele.”

“Não despreze a tradição que vem de anos longínquos; talvez as velhas avós guardem na memória relatos sobre coisas que alguma vez foram úteis para o conhecimento dos sábios.”

“Você pode encontrar as coisas que perdeu, mas nunca as que abandonou.”

“A guerra deve acontecer, enquanto estivermos defendendo nossas vidas contra um destruidor que poderia devorar tudo; mas não amo a espada brilhante por sua agudeza, nem a flecha por sua rapidez, nem o guerreiro por sua glória. Só amo aquilo que eles defendem.”

“Muitos que vivem merecem morrer. Alguns que morrem merecem viver. Você pode lhes dar a vida? Então não seja tão ávido para julgar e condenar alguém a morte, pois mesmo os mais sábios não podem ver os dois lados.”

“Aquele que quebra uma coisa para descobrir o que ela é deixou o caminho da sabedoria.”

“Três anéis para os Reis-Elfos sob este céu,
Sete para os Senhores-Anões em seus rochosos corredores,
Nove para Homens Mortais fadados ao eterno sono,
Um para o Senhor do Escuro em seu escuro trono
Na Terra de Mordor onde as Sombras se deitam.
Um Anel para todos governar, Um Anel para encontrá-los,
Um Anel para a todos trazer e na escuridão aprisioná-los
Na Terra de Mordor onde as Sombras se deitam.”

“O elogio que vem daquele que merece o elogio está acima de todas as recompensas.”

“Nem todos que vagam estão perdidos.”

“Os traiçoeiros são sempre desconfiados.”

“Alguém que, numa necessidade, não consegue jogar fora um tesouro está acorrentado.”

“A mão queimada ensina melhor. Depois disso o conselho sobre o fogo chega ao coração.”

“A esperança talvez nasça, quando tudo é desgraça.”

“Aquele que parte algo para saber o que é perdeu o caminho da sabedoria.”

“Atrás de uma esquina pode estar à espera um novo caminho ou uma porta secreta.”

“Muitas vezes precisa ser assim […] quando as coisas correm perigo: alguém tem de desistir delas, perdê-las, para que outros possam tê-las.”

“Se houvesse mais pessoas a valorizar a comida, a alegria e a música mais do que o vil ouro, viveríamos num mundo mais feliz.”

“O valor encontra-se em lugares improváveis.”

“Tudo o que temos de decidir é o que fazer com o tempo que nos é dado.”

“O conselho é uma dádiva perigosa, mesmo dos sábios para os sábios, e tudo pode dar errado.”

“Muitas vezes a verdade se esconde nas mentiras.”

“É sábio reconhecer a necessidade, quando todas as outras soluções já foram ponderadas, embora possa parecer tolice para aqueles que têm falsas esperanças.”

“É sempre assim o curso dos fatos que movem as rodas do mundo: as mãos pequenas os realizam porque precisam, enquanto os olhos dos grandes estão voltados para outros lugares.”

“Não jure que caminhará no escuro aquele que não viu o cair da noite.”

“Uma arma traiçoeira é sempre perigosa para quem a empunha.”

“A notícia que vem de longe raramente é verdadeira.”

“Com freqüência o mal com o mal se apaga.”

“O servo tem um direito sobre o mestre pelos serviços prestados, mesmo se prestados por medo.”

“Ações generosas não devem ser reprimidas por conselhos frios.”

“O golpe apressado geralmente se perde.”

“Os feitos não serão menos corajosos por não serem celebrados.”

“A esperança muitas vezes engana, […] o auxílio que chega sem ser esperado é duplamente abençoado.”

“É sempre assim com as coisas que os homens começam; há uma geada na primavera, ou uma praga no verão, e suas promessas fracassam.”

“Só é necessário um inimigo para preparar uma guerra, e não dois, […] e aqueles que não têm espadas ainda podem morrer por meio delas.”

“Escolha um nome pequeno, para não precisar diminuí-lo antes de usá-lo.”

“Não deve prometer andar na escuridão aquele que não viu o anoitecer.”

“Este é um mundo caído, e não há consonância entre os nossos corpos, as nossas mentes e as nossas almas.”

“Vento ruim é aquele que não sopra a favor de ninguém, como eu sempre digo. E o bem de todos como termina melhor!”

“Os feiticeiros, afinal, são magos!”

“Meu coração me empurra para além dos confins de Doriath- Disse Turin.”

“Havia Eru, o único, que em Arda era chamado de Ilúvatar. Ele criou primeiro os Ainur, os Sagrados, gerados por seu pensamento, e eles lhe faziam companhia antes que tudo o mais fosse criado”

“Os edain continuam homens mortais, Aldarion, por grandiosos que sejam: e não podemos residir no tempo que está por vir, pois assim perderíamos nosso agora em troca de um fantasma que nós mesmo inventamos”

“Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”

“In Paradise perchance the eye may stray
from gazing upon everlasting Day
to see the day illumined, and renew
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True.”

“Nothing has astonished me more (and I think my publishers) than the welcome given to The Lord of the Rings. But it is, of course, a constant source of consolation and pleasure to me. And, I may say, a piece of singular good fortune, much envied by some of my contemporaries. Wonderful people still buy the book, and to a man 'retired' that is both grateful and comforting.”

“You can make the Ring an allegory of our own time, if you like: an allegory of the inevitable fate that awaits all attempts to defeat evil power by power. But that is only because all power magical or mechanical does always so work.”

“I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humor (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much.”

“No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.”

“Yet trees are not 'trees', until so named and seen
and never were so named, till those had been
who speech's involuted breath unfurled,
faint echo and dim picture of the world”

“There was one picture in particular which bothered him. It had begun with a leaf caught in the wind, and it became a tree; and the tree grew, sending out innumerable branches, and thrusting out the most fantastic roots.”

“I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones…”

“I wish life was not so short," he thought. "Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.”

“I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighbourhood, intruding into my relatively safe world, in which it was, for instance, possible to read stories in peace of mind, free from fear. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fáfnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril.”

“I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by 'arisch'. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. … But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. … I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.”

“Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.”

“Most English-speaking people … will admit that cellar door is "beautiful," especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful…Well then, in Welsh, for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant.”

“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”

“Power' is an ominous and sinister word in all these tales, except as applied to the gods.”

“As for what you say or hint of 'local' conditions: I knew of them. I don't think they have much changed (even for the worse). I used to hear them discussed by my mother; and have ever since taken a special interest in that part of the world. The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain, & not only in South Africa. Unfort[unately], not many retain that generous sentiment for long.”

“All wishes are not idle, nor in vain
fulfilment we devise — for pain is pain,
not for itself to be desired, but ill;
or else to strive or to subdue the will
alike were graceless; and of Evil this
alone is deadly certain: Evil is.”

“To many, perhaps to most people outside the small company of the great scholars, past and present, 'Celtic' of any sort is, nonetheless, a magic bag, into which anything may be put, and out of which almost anything may come. … Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight, which is not so much a twilight of the gods as of the reason.”

“Every morning I wake up and think good, another 24 hours' pipe-smoking.”

“"It's a gift!" he said. He was referring to his art, and also to the result; but he was using the word quite literally.”

“The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise.”

“A story must be told or there'll be no story, yet it is the untold stories that are most moving.”

“Small wonder that spell means both a story told, and a formula of power over living men.”

“It was just as the 1914 War burst on me that I made the discovery that 'legends' depend on the language to which they belong; but a living language depends equally on the 'legends' which it conveys by tradition. … Volapuk, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c &c are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends…”

“For myself I would say that more than the interest and uses of the study of Welsh as an adminicle of English philology, more than the practical linguist's desire to acquire a knowledge of Welsh for the enlargement of his experience, more even than the interest and worth of the literature, older and newer, that is preserved in it, these two things seem important: Welsh is of this soil, this island, the senior language of the men of Britain; and Welsh is beautiful.”

“Well, the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter — leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines. As the servants of the Machine are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What's their next move?”

“I do so dearly believe that no half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.”

“The basic pleasure in the phonetic elements of a language and in the style of their patterns, and then in a higher dimension, pleasure in the association of these word-forms with meanings, is of fundamental importance. This pleasure is quite distinct from the practical knowledge of a language, and not the same as an analytic understanding of its structure. It is simpler, deeper-rooted, and yet more immediate than the enjoyment of literature.”