The most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

I will not give you counsel, saying do this, or do that. For not in doing or contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; but only in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be.

This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected.

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Adventures make one late for supper.

True education is a kind of never ending story — a matter of continual beginnings, of habitual fresh starts, of persistent newness.