"It's a dangerous business, going out your front door."/ Photo © Trey Ratcliff via Flickr

Biographile’s This Week in History remembers events of the past, and the icons that set them in motion. If you're stirred by the words below, read on for more inspiring author quotes.

A little over 120 years ago on January 3, 1892 in the heart of South Africa, a young boy was born who would grow up to change the face of genre fiction: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.

That boy grew into a soldier (and survivor of the Battle of the Somme), a respected academic teaching at Oxford, and a husband and father. But under an exterior of business and duty lived a man of vivid imagination, a man whose hobby writing would pave the way for some of our generation’s best writers.

Today, Tolkien is a household name at the center of one of the most influential book and film franchises in history. But that was far from the case during his lifetime, and Tolkien himself might have balked at the popularity of his work today since he took more pride in his academic and analytical writing. A friend and rival of C.S. Lewis, Tolkien spent his life admiring his cohort’s success, genuinely mystified that he could find an audience for stories with magic and fantasy at their heart.

But for those of us who were touched by the likes of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and for the countless authors in the once-unheard-of genre he inspired, Tolkien’s words – especially those in his works of fantasy – have an enduring power to inspire. The list below ranges from the sage wisdom of wizards to proverbial humor of the little folk (lest we forget the oft-repeated advice of the Gaffer). Tolkien never ran out of characters and languages to share his insightful bits of wordplay disguising life advice. After all, no one knows how to play with words quite like a linguist.

1. “It's a dangerous business… 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.” (The Lord of the Rings, 1954)

2. “Short cuts make long delays.” (The Lord of the Rings, 1954)

3.“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” (The Hobbit, 1937)

4. “It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.” (The Lord of the Rings, 1954)

5. “I warn you, if you bore me, I shall take my revenge.” (Letter to C.S. Lewis, 1948)

6. “Never laugh at live dragons.” (The Hobbit, 1937)

7. “Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.” (The Lord of the Rings, 1954)

8. “A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.” (The Children of Húrin, 2007)

9. “Courage is found in unlikely places.” (The Lord of the Rings, 1954)

10. “I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” (The Lord of the Rings, 1954)

11. “There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.” (The Lord of the Rings, 1954)