"What course am I to take?" "Towards..." - Quote by J R R Tolkien
What course am I to take?" "Towards danger; but not too rashly, nor too straight.
More by J R R Tolkien
“And it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world.”
“I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.”
“Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something.”
More on Guidance
“Don't insist on going where you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring.”
“In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round,--for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost,--do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature.”
“Philosophy is life's dry-nurse, who can take care of us - but not suckle us.”
More on Danger
“[Should Britain fail, then the entire world would] sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister ... by the lights of perverted science.”
“Your wisdom is consum'd in confidence. Do not go forth to-day.”
“The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug - that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous, and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes.”