John Ronald Reuel Tolkien idézet

oldal 2

„Nem minden vándorút céltalan.”

„Sokan vannak, akik élnek, pedig halált érdemelnének. És vannak, akik meghalnak, pedig életet érdemelnének. Nekik mit tudsz adni? Hát akkor ne siess úgy a halálos ítéletekkel. Hiszen még a legbölcsebbek se látják mindennek a végét.”

„Ha kell, legyen háború, amíg az életünket védjük a pusztítótól, aki elemésztene mindent; de én a fényes kardot nem azért szeretem, mert éles, a nyílvesszőt, mert gyors, a harcost, mert diadalmas. Én mindezt csak azért szeretem, amit véd.”

„De hát nem mi döntjük el, hogy mikor éljünk. Mi csak abban dönthetünk, mi a teendő, ha már itt vagyunk.”

„Nem minden vándorút céltalan.”

„Áruló az, aki ott vesz búcsút, ahol az út sötétté válik.”

„Lehet, hogy az út, amelyet kinek-kinek követnie kell, már ott húzódik a lába előtt, csak látni nem látja.”

„A kényszert fölismerni bölcsesség, azután, hogy a cselekvés valamennyi útját gondosan mérlegeltük, még ha ez ostobaságnak tűnik is azok szemében, akik a hamis reményhez makacsul ragaszkodnak.”

„Aki eltör valamit, hogy megtudja, mi az; az letér a bölcsesség útjáról.”

„Sok ellenséggel fogtok találkozni, nyílt ellenséggel és álruhással; ám meglehet, épp ott találtok jóbarátra, ahol legkevésbé számítotok rá.”

„Körülötettek pedig ott a nagyvilág; bezárkózni, azt lehet, de a világot örökre kizárni, azt már nem.”

„Azzal az idővel kell foglalkoznunk, ami megadatik nekünk.”

„Jómagam szívből utálom az allegóriát, minden formájában.”

„Nagyon boldog vagyok, hogy említette a neveket, mert ezek nagy problémát okoztak nekem. És épp ebben lelem a legnagyobb örömömet is: egy jó névben. Íráskor is mindig egy névből indulok ki. Mondjon nekem egy nevet, és lesz belőle egy történet - rendszerint így van nálam, s nem fordítva.”

„Úgy hatott rám, mint a háború 1914-es kitörése, mikor felfedeztem, hogy a «legendák» függenek attól a nyelvtől amelyhez tartoznak; de egy élő nyelv ugyanúgy függ a legendáitól, melyeket tradicionálisan közvetít. […] A volapük, eszperantó, ido, novial, stb. stb. mind holtak, sokkal inkább mint az ősi, már nem használt nyelvek, mivel a létrehozójuk soha nem talált ki eszperantó legendákat…”

„Mítoszaink talán tévelyegnek, de bármily tétován is, az igaz cél felé haladnak, míg a materialisztikus »haladás« csak az ásító szakadék felé vezet, a gonosz hatalmának vaskoronája felé.”

“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.”