# It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 26, 2020, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life/854488 "2020-05-26T13:33:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life/854488/1 "2020-05-26T13:33:30Z")
Lots of Web sites have “It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life” as a quote from Tolkien. Where is it, does anyone know? I don’t remember reading such a line, but I’m a tyro compared to some here on the boards. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life/854488/2 "2020-05-26T13:54:46Z")
Well, I haven’t read everything Tolkien wrote and haven’t memorized every line of Tolkien that I have read, but I’m gonna stick my neck out here and opine that that “quote” is made up/misattributed. I’ve seen [claims that it’s spoken by Bilbo in _Fellowship of the Ring_](https://medium.com/@robsullivanart/it-is-brought-home-to-me-it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life-1261c12f2ef2). AFAICT, [it may be in the movie screenplay](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/120316), but it’s not in the book itself. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life/854488/3 "2020-05-26T18:42:58Z")
I doubt whether he said it. It sounds like it could have come from one of Tolkien’s letters, rather than from his books. But I just checked his collected letters, and there’s nothing like that there. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life/854488/4 "2020-05-26T18:55:53Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > I doubt whether he said it. > > It sounds like it could have come from one of Tolkien’s letters, rather than from his books. But I just checked his collected letters, and there’s nothing like that there. It’s [in the movie screenplay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PcUnqlPA8A) (by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philppa Boyens): see the end of this clip. Some fool of a Took heard that line or saw it quoted and jumped to the conclusion that it was actually in Tolkien’s books, but I’ll bet anything you like that it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life/854488/5 "2020-05-26T19:59:42Z")
I just asked about this in a mailing list that includes a lot of Tolkien scholars. It’s not from Tolkien. One person says that it sounds like “a distillation of Thorin’s far more elegant last words”, but it isn’t Tolkien. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2020, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life/854488/6 "2020-06-05T21:30:33Z")
Thanks all, it was my belief that it should be correctly attributed to Walsh/Boyens/Jackson and it would appear that I’m right. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2020, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life/854488/7 "2020-06-05T21:56:02Z")
Thanks all, it was my belief that it should be correctly attributed to Walsh/Boyens/Jackson and it would appear that I’m right. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2020, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life/854488/8 "2020-06-05T22:32:49Z")
I did a mass phrase search of essentially all of JRRT’s books relating to Middle Earth, including HOMES, etc. looking for the phrase “simple life”. It turns up ONLY ONCE, in **Unfinished Tales** , APPENDIX B THE SINDARIN PRINCES OF THE SILVAN ELVES" > [@](#): > > They wished indeed to become Silvan folk and to return, as they said, to the **simple life** natural to the Elves before the invitation of the Valar had disturbed it. . ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2020, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-no-bad-thing-to-celebrate-a-simple-life/854488/9 "2020-06-05T22:35:11Z")
duplicate from glitching board