Quotes About The Ring Of Power

“In many cities, tyrants were able to seize power by offering to protect the poorer citizens against the rich or vice versa. "Tyrant" is a word with an unlovely ring to it, but did not inevitably imply that a ruler was brutal or self-seeking, only that he had acquired power unconstitutionally, and governed as a sole ruler.”

— Alan Ryan

“It didn't take a trauma to make you wear a mask. It didn't take your parents getting shot ... or cosmic rays or a power ring ... Just the perfect combination of loneliness and despair.”

— Mark Millar

“The poet must always, in every instance, have the vibrant word ... that by it's trenchancy can so wound my soul that it whimpers ... One must know and recognize not merely the direct but the secret power of the word; one must be able to give one's writing unexpected effects. It must have a hectic, anguished vehemence, so that it rushes past like a gust of air, and it must have a latent, roistering tenderness so that it creeps and steals one's mind; it must be able to ring out like a sea-shanty in a tremendous hour, in the time of the tempest, and it must be able to sigh like one who, in tearful mood, sobs in his inmost heart.”

— Knut Hamsun

“Perhaps you would care to wear it. While we are in this chamber," he added hastily. She lifted her eyebrows. "Why?" "Because then you would be lord." "Why would I want that?" "Then you would rule over me. As I rule over you when I wear this ring." He looked at her earnestly. "To give you a feeling of power. At least while we are inside." She slowly folded her fingers over the ring and Richard was sure he'd appeased her. Then she shook her head. "You don't understand." She looked up at him. "I don't want to rule you." "But . . ." "Richard, I just want you to stop thinking of me as someone who isn't your equal. That's all." "But you're a woman!" "And you're a man." "You cannot fight." "You can't bear children." He frowned. "You couldn't defend the keep." "You couldn't build one." "And you could?" "I could." This wasn't proceeding as he had planned it should.”

— Lynn Kurland

“But the only measure that he knows is desire desire for power and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this we shall put him out of reckoning.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“I am not a 'democrat' only because 'humility' and equality are spiritual principles corrupted by the attempt to mechanize and formalize them, with the result that we get not universal smallness and humility, but universal greatness and pride, till some Orc gets hold of a ring of power
and then we get and are getting slavery.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“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.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the Dark Power that rules the Rings.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“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. And much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that One Ring; for the power of the Elven-rings was very great, and that which should govern them must be a thing of surpassing potency; and Sauron forged it in the Mountain of Fire in the Land of Shadow. And while he wore the One Ring he could perceive all the things that were done by means of the lesser rings, and he could see and govern the very thoughts of those that wore them.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“O Sam! cried Frodo. 'What have I said? What have I done? Forgive me! After all you have done. It is the horrible power of the Ring. I wish it had never, never, been found. But don't mind me, Sam. I must carry the burden to the end. It can't be altered. You can't come between me and this doom.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“Embrace The Power of The Ring! Or embrace your own destruction!”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“We do not desire the power of wizard-lords, only strength to defend ourselves, strength in a just cause. And behold! in our need chance brings to light the Ring of Power. It is a gift, I say; a gift to the foes of Mordor. It”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“A great ring of pure & endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart
And breaks apart the dusky clouds of night.
The end of all is hinted in the start.
When we are born we bear the seeds of blight;
Around us life & death are torn apart,
Yet a great ring of pure and endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart.
It lights the world to my delight.
Infinity is present in each part.
A loving smile contains all art.
The motes of starlight spark & dart.
A grain of sand holds power & might.
Infinity is present in each part,
And a great ring of pure and endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart.”

— Madeleine L'Engle

“People don't talk about mercy very much these days-it has a rather old-fashioned ring to it. but it exists and its power is quite extraordinary”

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Writers of the world, if you've got a story, I want to hear it. I promise it will follow me to my last breath. My soul will dance with pleasure, and it'll change the quality of all my waking hours. You will hearten me and brace me up for the hard days as they enter my life on the prowl. I reach for a story to save my own life. Always. It clears the way for me and makes me resistant to all the false promises signified by the ring of power. In every great story, I encounter a head-on collision with self and imagination.”

— Pat Conroy

“I want a magical horse that fits in my pocket," Wil said. "And a ring of red amber that gives me power over demons. And an endless supply of cake.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

“The remnants of my dress hung like tentacles and from my back arched a pari of towering wings, feather-light but suggesting enourmous power. My hair streamed behind me, and I knew that the ring of light around my head would be brighter than ever.
"Holy crap!" Xavier blurted”

— Alexandra Adornetto

“People caught up in the excitement of mutiny could not maintain for long that union which allows great things to be accomplished. A ring leader of mutineers never has anything but an uncertain power in his hands.”

— Jules Verne

“Until 1982, Canada Day was known as Dominion Day. I always thought that had more of a ring to it. Beyond the zippy alliteration, it reminded us citizens that our domain of orderly domesticity was graced by the dominant power of our 'Dominus.'”

— Rick Moranis

“The crews, the young men who'd transmuted their fear into rage, were the greatest danger. The crews walked the blocks of their neighborhood, loud and rude, because it was only through their loud rudeness that they might feel any sense of security and power. They would break your jaw, stomp your face, and shoot you down to feel that power, to revel in the might of their own bodies. And their wild reveling, their astonishing acts made their names ring out. Reps were made, atrocities recounted.”

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power.”

— Jeffrey Archer

“It is a part of our office to stand uncloaked, masked, sword bared, upon the scaffold for a long time before the client is brought out. Some say this is to symbolize the unsleeping omnipresence of justice, but I believe the real reason is to give the crowd a focus, and the feeling that something is about to take place. A crowd is not the sum of the individuals who compose it. Rather it is a species of animal, without language or real consciousness, born when they gather, dying when they depart. Before the Hall of Justice, a ring of dimarchi surrounded the scaffold with their lances, and the pistol their officer carried could, I suppose, have killed fifty or sixty before someone could snatch it from him and knock him to the cobblestones to die. Still it is better to have a focus, and some open symbol of power.
Wolfe, Gene (1994-10-15). Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun' (p. 184). Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition.”

— Gene Wolfe

“Deathstorm sees Power Ring as a fascinating experiment. Deathstorm is a scientist who's been merged with the dead body of his lab assistant. It's given him a cold demeanor and a clammy touch.”

— Geoff Johns

“A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.”

— Aristotle

“Gollum has a weak personality and isn't able to cope with the power of the ring.”

— Andy Serkis

“More than anything else, Kiyoaki thought, more than Princess Chan, the emerald ring, their friends, their school, perhaps what the princes had needed had been sunshine. It seemed that summer had the power to heal all frustrations, soothe every grief, restore their lost happiness.”

— Yukio Mishima

“There's hidden sweeteness in the stomach's emptiness.
We are lutes, no more no less. If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and the belly are burning clean
with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you
run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.
When you're full of food and drink, an ugly metal statue sits where your spirit should. When you fast,
good habits gather like friends who want to help.
Fasting is Solomon's ring. Don't give it to some illusion and lose your power,
but even if you have, if you've lost all will and control, they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing out of the ground, pennants flying above them.
A table descends to your tents, Jesus' table.
Expect to see it, when you fast, this table spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.”

— Rumi

“Behold those times re-created by
the brutal power of sunlit images,
the light of life's tragedy.
The walls of the trial, the field
of the firing squad; and the distant
ghost of Rome's suburbs in a ring,
gleaming white in naked light.
Gunshots: our death, our survival.”

— Pier Paolo Pasolini

“Maya has chosen to be ring bearer because the job has more responsibility than flower girl. "If you lose a flower, you get another flower," Maya reasons. "If you lose the ring, everyone is sad forever. The ring bearer has much more power."
"You sound like Gollum," A.J. says.
"Who's Gollum?" Maya wants to know.
"Someone very nerdy that your father likes," Amelia says.”

— Gabrielle Zevin

“In order to fulfill your quest -"
"Would you please not usw that word? It's so Robert E. Howard."
"Fine. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to travel to the far ends of the earth ... ?"
"What? In these shoes? You must be joking."
"Crossing arid desserts and steaming jungles," the unicorn continued grimly, "fording mighty rivers and climbing snow-capped mountains-"
"I take it scheduled public transport isn't an option."
"Until you reach the Cradle of All Goblins, interrupt just once more and I wash my hooves of you, where you will encounter three trials. You must uncover the great truth that was hidden, you must right the ancestral wrong, and you must throw the fire into the ring of power. Only when you have done that -"
"Excuse me-"
"I warned you. Only when you have done that will you -"
"Excuse me," Benny said firmly, "bit I think you may have got the last one a bit turned round. Surely it should be throw the ring-”

— Tom Holt

“[In Adelie Land, Antarctica, a howling river of] wind, 50 miles wide, blows off the plateau, month in and month out, at an average velocity of 50 m.p.h. As a source of power this compares favorably with 6,000 tons of water falling every second over Niagara Falls. I will not further anticipate some H. G. Wells of the future who will ring the antarctic with power-producing windmills; but the winds of the Antarctic have to be felt to be believed, and nothing is quite impossible to physicists and engineers.”

— Frank Debenham

“Donaire is a very good champion. We both have speed and power. The difference is intelligence. I was born to fight. The bigger the fight the better. If Donaire isn't right, he's going to get knocked out. Maybe five rounds, maybe less. Not sure yet. But you know what? Donaire stepped up and took this fight. He didn't have to. For that, I respect him for getting in the ring with me.”

— Nicholas Walters

“I systematically break guys down. I get in the ring and they say I don't have any power but then they feel me and feel my strength.”

— Timothy Bradley

“Confident fighters are dangerous fighters. I know that. But there other fighters who said before a fight they were stronger than me, hit harder, were going to knock me out. Walters is a good champion but really how many quality fights has he been in compared to where I have been in my career? We both have speed, we both have power. It's an explosive fight. This is going to end in a knockout. I will go into the ring and do my best.”

— Nonito Donaire

“Sound, sound the trump of Fame!
Let Washington's great name
Ring through the world with loud applause;
Let every clime to Freedom dear
Listen with a joyful ear.
With equal skill, with god-like power,
He governs in the fearful hour
Of horrid war, or guides with ease,
The happier times of honest peace.”

— Joseph Hopkinson

“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.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“What is a novel? I say: an invented story. At the same time a story which, though invented has the power to ring true. True to what? True to life as the reader knows life to be or, it may be, feels life to be. And I mean the adult, the grown-up reader. Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales, and we do not want the fantastic and the impossible. So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the adult tests of reality.”

— Elizabeth Bowen

“Names have a mysterious transforming power. Like a ring on a finger, a name may at first seem merely accidental, committing you to nothing; but before you realize its magical power, it's gotten under your skin, become part of you and your destiny.”

— Stefan Zweig

“There are some great stories in The Second Ring of Power about how Don Juan and Don Genaro found their apprentices and what they went through to fool their students into seeking light.”

— Frederick Lenz

“Just as the DNA is a structure of double helical bonds, so your being is a structure of elements, not physical elements, but awarenesses that have come together in a ring of power.”

— Frederick Lenz

“God isn't calling us to a lonely, joyless existence with the promise of a delayed reward. God is calling us to live, to love and enjoy the challenge. God's formulas are roadmaps to freedom and peace. God is saying to us: "The only way to live is to be free. So save your heart for love and save your love for persons. Don't ever let any 'thing' own you. Don't let money or fame or power or the pursuit of pleasure put a ring in your nose and lead you around. Love persons and use things." And of course, this is the only way to live, to be free.”

— John Powell

“Let's say that when every one of us is born we bring with us a little ring of power. That little ring is almost immediately put to use. So every one of us is already hooked from birth and our rings of power are joined to everyone else's. In other words, our rings of power are hooked to the doing of the world in order to make the world.”

— Carlos Castaneda