“In many ways,' answered the wizard. 'It is far more powerful than I ever dared to think at first, so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him.”

“But I have so little of any of these things! You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?""No!" cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. "With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly." His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. "Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.”

“Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.”

“Folly it may seem. Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him…. We live now upon an island amid many perils, and our hands are more often upon the bowstring than upon the harp”

“If you wanted to go on from the end of The Hobbit I think the ring would be your inevitable choice as the link. If then you wanted a large tale, the Ring would at once acquire a capital letter; and the Dark Lord would immediately appear. As he did, unasked, on the hearth at Bag End as soon as I came to that point. So the essential Quest started at once. But I met a lot of things along the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner of the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than Frodo did. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlorien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there.-- (J.R.R. Tolkien to W.H. Auden, June 7, 1955.)”

“But that will leave no place for us!’ cried Pippin in dismay. ‘We don’t want to be left behind. We want to go with Frodo.’ ‘That is because you do not understand and cannot imagine what lies ahead,’ said Elrond. ‘Neither does Frodo,’ said Gandalf, unexpectedly supporting Pippin. “Nor do any of us see clearly. It is true that if these hobbits understood the danger, they would not dare to go. But they would still wish to go, or wish that they dared, and be shamed and unhappy. I think, Elrond, that in this matter it would be well to trust rather to their friendship than to great wisdom. Even if you chose for us an elf-lord, such as Glorfindel, he could not storm the Dark Tower, nor open the road to the Fire by the power that is in him.”

“So it ends as I guessed it would,' his thoughts said, even as it fluttered away; and it laughed a little within him ere it fled, almost gay it seemed to be casting off all doubt and care and fear. And even as it winged away into forgetfulness it heard voices, and they seemed to be crying in some forgotten world far above:'The eagles are coming! The eagles are coming!'For one moment more Pippin's thought hovered. "Bilbo! But no! That came in his tale, long long ago. This is my tale, and it ended now. Good-bye!' And his thought fled far away and his eyes saw no more.”