“Amphibians”

“Humans are amphibians – half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.”

C. S. Lewis

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

Groaning of Creation

“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)

The Swing of the Pendulum

“The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings.”

G. K. Chesterton, “The New House” Alarms and Discursions

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

Durable Happiness

“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.”

C. S. Lewis

Treasure Snatched Away

“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

Fashionable Fallacies

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”

G. K. Chesterton

Aim at Heaven – Aim at Earth

“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”

C. S. Lewis

Those fleeting possessions . . .

“Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before.”

 G. K. Chesterton – Tremendous Trifles