A pen isn't mightier than a sword. Pens do not do battle, nor swords poetry. Mighty is the hand that knows when to pick up the pen, or pick up the sword.

Quite balanced, I like it

The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters

I like how dramatic it is, I like the metaphor and it feels current.

Not every emptiness is meant to be filled.

There are some hungers better starved than fed

Some things shouldn't be indulged in. I think sometimes we should have principles and we should consider what we maintain and support.

The higher our self-esteem, the more open, honest, and appropriate our communications are likely to be, because we believe our thoughts have value and therefore we welcome rather than fear clarity. The lower our self-esteem, the more muddy, evasive, and inappropriate our communications are likely to be, because of uncertainty about our own thoughts and feelings and/or anxiety about the listener's response.

— Nathaniel Branden

A jack of all trades is a master of none, though oftentimes better than a master of one

Why is happiness so elusive? Because you look for it in the future instead of the present.

A meme on the internet

The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.

— Thucydides

In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.

— Diogenes of Sinope

Those who don't climb mountains, will always live in the valley.

You have to dare and you have to start. Otherwise nothing will change.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

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

Do not despair. Make a choice.

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

A little optimistic, but I like it.

Never laugh at live dragons.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Take real issues seriously. Some people might take things to just be empty words but sometimes there is real suffering behind that and that deserves to be taken seriously.

Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

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

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

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

I find this motivational.

Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?... If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Wise advice from someone from a difficult time for a difficult time.

War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

Killing might sometimes be a necessity, but it is never a joyful one. Those who derive joy from it are already misguided.

For those who are not looking out for signs of Armageddon and awaiting it as a child waits for a father to return, the drama of Apocalypse looks merely like a collection of people who, in waiting for the world to end, are actively worsening life in the present.

— Talia Lavin

Wild Faith

It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior.

— Nathaniel Brandon

The six pillars of self-esteem

Not only in peasant homes, but also in city skyscrapers, there lives along side the twentieth century the thirteenth.

— Carl Sagan

The Demon-haunted world