TOLKIEN QUOTES: Reader Michael Drout sends this:
This one, from The Return of the King, is what I sent to several of my
students last year who wanted to turn to literature:
“Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
A fairly good answer to those who suggest that we have to solve every other problem (i.e, Israel / Palestinians, poverty in the third world, racism, etc.) before we can tackle terrorists.
As for other relevant Tolkien, today, in response to the Samizdata posting from England, I used another appropriate quote in the comments:
‘Between us there can be no word of giving or taking, nor of reward; for we are brethren…. and never has any league of peoples been more blessed, so that neither has ever failed the other, nor shall fail.”
Bigwig adds another, which he says should apply to “all who take up arms against the West:”
All were slain save those who fled to die, or to drown in the red foam of the River. Few ever came eastward to Morgul or to Mordor; and to the land of the Haradrim came only a tale from far off: a rumour of the wrath and terror of Gondor.
Any others?
UPDATE: But of course. Reader Christopher Brandt sends this:
One of my favorites, and I think especially applicable now
>From The Two Towers (Book III)
{Eomer speaks to Aragorn} ‘… How shall a man judge what to do in such times?’
‘As he ever has judged,’ said Aragorn. ‘Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.’
And reader Mark Ayres sends this non-fictional item:
Surely you can not leave out this one. It’s not from his fiction, but from a letter rebuffing a German publisher in 1938:
As a fervent Catholic, a veteran of the Somme, and a genuine scholar of Nordic cultures, Tolkien was not blind to these events. In 1938, Tolkien denounced the Nazis’ “wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.” When German publishers Rütten and Loening wished to translate The Hobbit from English, they wrote him, inquiring whether his name was of “Aryan” origin. Tolkien’s reply dripped scorn:
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 think I have seen it phrased differently before; it seems I remembered it being directed at Goebbels (better yet!). This is where I googled it just
now: link.
This version matches my memory, as I’ve seen this quoted before. Very impressive stuff. Sadly, few authors in the 20th century possessed Tolkien’s moral clarity, whether in their works, or in life.
THE LAST UPDATE ON THIS: Reader Don McGregor writes:
Tolkien goes on in that letter to add:
“My great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany; the main part of my descent is therefore purely English… I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout 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 be come the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name no longer be a source of pride.”
Truly, a glorious letter. (Collected letters, Houghton Mifflin, pp 37-8.)
Very nice.