We are truth-speakers, we men of Gondor. We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt. "Not if I found it on the highway would I take it," I said. Even if I were such a man as to desire this thing, and even though I knew not clearly what this thing was when I spoke, still I should take those words as a vow, and be held by them.

Short cuts make long delays.

Frodo: Go back, Sam! I’m going to Mordor alone. Sam: Of course you are, and I’m coming with you!

And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.

It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.

Then shouldering their burdens, they set off, seeking a path that would bring them over the grey hills of the Emyn Muil, and down into the Land of Shadow.

Life is rather above the measure of us all (save for a very few perhaps). We all need literature that is above our measure--though we may not have sufficient energy for it all the time.