Where many paths and errands meet

“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.”

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Making Plans

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”

J. R. R. Tolkien, from The Hobbit

Aragorn

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Adventure of Virtue

“Keep before your eyes the supreme adventure of virtue. If you are brave, think of the man who was braver than you. If you are kind, think of the man who was kinder than you. That is what was meant by having a patron saint.”

G. K. Chesterton (“The War on Holidays,” Utopia of Usurers)

Swimming Upstream

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”

G. K. Chesterton, “The Five Deaths of the Faith” The Everlasting Man

chance of turning back

“But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end”

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

. . . to breed a war

“It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord Of The Ring 

Virtue of Courage

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

C. S. Lewis