You can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like: and allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power.
Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or made by the forces of good.
This is worse than Mordor!’ said Sam. ‘Much worse in a way. It comes home to you, as they say; because it is home, and you remember it before it was all ruined.
And now’, said the wizard, turning back to Frodo, ‘the decision lies with you. But I will always help you.’ He laid his hand on Frodo’s shoulder. ‘I will help you bear this burden, as long as it is yours to bear.
Ever Melkor found some ears that would heed him, and some tongues that would enlarge what they had heard; and his lies passed from friend to friend, as secrets of which the knowledge proves the teller wise.
Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that came down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures.
So great was her sorrow, as the Music unfolded, that her song turned to lamentation long before its end, and the sound of mourning was woven into the themes of the World before it began. But she does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope.
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.
Now the Elves made many rings; but secretly Sauron made One Ring to rule all the others, and their power was bound up with it, to be subject wholly to it and to last only so long as it too should last.
At length they came in their journeying to the Pools of Ivrin, and looked with grief on the defilement wrought there by the passage of Glaurung the Dragon; but even as they gazed upon it they saw one going northward in haste, and he was a tall Man, clad in black, and bearing a black sword. But they knew not who he was, nor anything of what had befallen in the south; and he passed them by, and they said no word.
You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word.
Still we shall have to try,′ said Frodo. ‘It’s no worse than I expected. I never hoped to get across. I can’t see any hope of it now. But I’ve still got to do the best I can.
Now do not tell me Gandalf, that I promised to keep him safe; for I know it. But things have changed since then. And I kept him until he was safe, safe from doing any more harm. You should know that above all I hate caging of live things, and I will not keep even such creatures as these caged beyond great need. A snake without fangs may crawl where he will.
Long in tale of years, but in memory too brief.
Here the hands of the Valar themselves, in ancient wars of the world’s beginning, had wrested the great mountains asunder, and the sides of the rift were sheer as if axe-cloven, and they towered up to heights unguessable.
As for me, I am of the Noldor, and long must be the hunger and cold the winter that shall slay the kin of those who passed the Grinding Ice.
But in the bearing of her son Miriel was consumed in spirit and body; and after his birth she yearned for release from the labour of living. And when she had named him she said to Finwe: ‘Never again shall I bear child; for strength that would have nourished the life of many has gone forth into Feanor.
Damn!” said Niggle. But he might just as well have said “Come in!” politely, for the door opened all the same.
And you can say what you like, about what you know no more of than you do of boating, Mr. Sandyman,’ retorted the Gaffer, disliking the miller even more than usual. ‘If that’s being queer, then we could do with a bit more queerness in these parts.
They shall see me and remember who is the real King under the Mountain! -Smaug.
We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the Bridge and second hall. Frar and Loni and Nali fell there. the pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Oin. We cannot get out. The end comes, drums, drums in the deep. they are coming.