John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892 to 1973) was a major scholar of the English language, specializing in Old and Middle English. He also wrote a vast number of stories, including the well-known “The Hobbit” in 1937 and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), which are set in a pre-historic era in an devised version of our world which he called by the Middle English name of Middle-earth.
This was peopled by Men and women, Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Orcs (or Goblins) and Hobbits. He has regularly been condemned by the English Literature Establishment, with honorable exceptions, and loved by literally millions of readers worldwide.
The genius paints life in most of his stories as harsh battles between the good and evil. And most of all, through the writings, Tolkien highlights life quotes that teach us the meaning of life as one big battle between picking sides: good and evil.
1. Darkness must pass, a new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Especially in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, the battle prevails between good and evil, lightness and darkness, not much different from Yin and Yang.
Although you see the perfect version of you in front of your eyes, and the human you want to be in the future, you deeply know that you have to walk through the darkness (not literally.)
When the sun shines (the perfect version of you) it will shine out the clearer (make you forget every bit of hard battle you’ve been through.) Although for this version, you have to walk the difficulties in life and see them as opportunities.
Either one hundred years ago or a thousand, the way to greatness remains the same. With “Darkness must pass, a new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer” is precisely grasped.
2. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
People are given a time span called life. With the years we have, it’s up to us to decide how we’ll spend them.
In the end, it’s not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away. People only breathe for hundred years and call it a life, without noticing that rarely (almost never) encountered moments that took their breath away.
When looking life in the way that our time is limited, we’ll spend every day wisely. Often we forget that one day we will be gone, and forget to make firm decision to do most of the time left for us.
I hope we all start to be aware that life is limited, and remind this fact every day, until the last day of our lives. We change the history of the humankind every day.
3. You can only come to the morning through the shadows.
If taken literally, this sentence is dumb. However, Tolkien never states the obvious, but digs deeper in the simple thoughts.
The best part of the day, the morning, comes right after the moonlight.
Metaphorically, we are not able to see the morning breeze, or the best part of the day if we don’t overcome difficulties. The self-fulfillment comes right after we execute tasks and problems. You just can’t feel worthy and satisfied if you lay home in your bed (except if it’s Sunday and you’re resting from a long week).
Tolkien double dares you to fight for the things you love, for those things give you the real morning breeze.
4. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
All you need is less. It’s one of the most complete sentences to defeat people’s greed.
The default human behavior always wants’ more, until one day it turns back with all the cash in the bank and figures out that working to accumulate so hard took his real things in life. So the balance is broken and broken apart, while they are trying to throw time back and life as they were twenty.
Trying to get more is great thing, but not cash-wise. Expand your capabilities, motivate yourself to work harder and accumulate more, but at the end you will see that food, cheer and song will stay in your memories and stories to tell to your grandchildren.
So money is tool to make life easier, not the last goal. In the end, everything good thing is more important than money. By this knowledge, as Tolkien states, it would be a merrier world.
5. A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.
Avoiding fear will only show that it will pop up again in near future. There is no way to avoid fear. We can only procrastinate.
Every person that dreams big approaches thousands fears on the way. One has to sacrifice many things in life to achieve big.
Defeating fear has no formula. Nobody shows simple steps to overcome fear. It’s just a step forward off the comfort. One little tiny moment of stepping out of the know factors. And that’s what scaring us, not knowing what is coming next. Also, that’s the beauty of it. Just like a “leap of faith.”
Our mind has the “safety button”, and to protect itself it makes the worst case scenarios before facing any fears. Don’t listen to it. Shatter the safety voice.
6. There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.
We definitely have conflicts between countries that fight for greed. We definitely have prevailing racism in this world, but in the end, there is good in all people, and that is worth fighting for.
You I and everyone have bad and good sides, which make us whole. So, if I decide to look at everyone’s bad sides I would never be able to see the good in this world. If choose to direct my reticular cortex to see bad parts in everyone, that’s exactly what I am going to notice every time I meet new person.
Bottom line, as Tolkien says “There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.
7. Little by little, one travels far.
Tolkien wrote one of the best classic high-fantasy works. He did that little by little.
Every step in a given direction is leading you closer to it. The road cannot last forever. You are closer to it with every step.
However long the distance may be, it’s still a “distance” – an amount of space between two things. Even if it’s not always going forward, there is one beautiful quote from Robert Brault: “Optimist: Someone who figures that taking a step backward after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it’s a cha-cha.”
Focus on the things in front of you, and from time to time, turn your head up to see the finish line. Every time you turn your head up you’ll be closer to it.
8. It’s not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.
Every greater strength comes from within – the spirit inside. It’s vastly described in one of Tolkien writings. One hobbit, short and tiny, with the help from his fellows, succeeds to pass a whole army of evil and destroy the ring.
Life is not a fairy tale. But the exact fairy tales describe life with the touch of magic (and in this case a couple of dwarves, elves, and dragons).
So if you try to find real strength, don’t seek it in the gym. Your true power is in your mind.
9. A single dream is worth a thousand realities.
If you dare to imagine, you are more than half way through. Most people lack imagination, which is the most common obstacle to see your perfect self in the future.
Having a single dream reveals a capacity in our mind that wouldn’t be unleashed without it. We can jump from one thing to another in real life, but if we don’t dare to dream and see where we want to stand, we can whirl like an aimless fish that forgets everything in a couple of seconds.
It’s okay to be lost, but not for a long time. It’s a must to have vision like “I would like to have this in that period of time” and constantly update. Be flexible and most of all dare to dream.
10.There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.
Thomas Edison inspired himself with looking in the unknown. He had millions of failed attempts, a lot more than successful. But one big triumph is worth a thousand failures.
When we start to look, especially when we know we want it, our mind is 100% focused and aware of all opportunities to get closer to it.
All we have to do is search, research and look. If you still don’t believe that if you look you will find, read my personal theory of “Skoda drivers wear glasses.”
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