Meaning in the Universe
March 19, 2007
“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
C. S. Lewis
Aragorn
March 16, 2007
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
Groaning of Creation
March 14, 2007
“There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over… Faint to my ears came the gathered rumour of all lands: the springing and the dying, the song and the weeping, and the slow everlasting groan of overburdened stone.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973)
Unique Purpose
March 11, 2007
“Believe, amid whatever madness or moral failure, that your life and temperament have some object on earth. Believe that you have something to give the world which cannot otherwise be given.”
G. K. Chesterton, (“Philosophy of Browning,” Robert Browning)
chance of turning back
February 20, 2007
“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
Treasure Snatched Away
January 23, 2007
“Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973), Mandos, The Silmarillion, Of the Flight of the Noldor
Love Grows Greater
January 14, 2007
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair; and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
What’s worth defending?
January 10, 2007
“I do not love the bright sword for it’s sharpness, nor the arrow for it’s swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
Will they tell your story?
January 10, 2007
“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 (1892 – 1973), The Lord of the Rings
