Friendship

“It is going to be very dangerous, Sam. ‘It is already dangerous. Most likely neither of us will come back.’
‘If you don’t come back, sir, then I shan’t, that’s certain,’ said Sam.

‘Don’t you leave him! they said to me.
Leave him! I said. I never mean to. I am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon, and if any of those Black Rulers try to stop him, they’ll have Sam Gamgee to reckon with, I said.

They laughed.’ “

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

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

School of Hard Knocks

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”
C. S. Lewis

Self-Criticism

“What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.”

G. K. Chesterton, “Sidelights on New London and Newer New York”

. . . of True Worth

“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;
renenwed shall be blade that was broken,
the crownless again shall be king.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord Of The Ring

The Mother of Giants

“Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things
from the valley; only small things from the peak.”

G. K. Chesterton (Father Brown: The Hammer of God)

Humility and Pride

A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

C. S. Lewis