How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph).
Quote #10
Suddenly, caught by the level beams, Frodo saw the old king's head: it was lying rolled away by the roadside. "Look, Sam!" he cried, startled into speech. "Look! The king has got a crown again!"
The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed.
"They cannot conquer for ever!" said Frodo. And then suddenly the brief glimpse was gone. (4.7.70-72)
Sauron's great talent is for taking over other people's stuff and repurposing it for his own use, but he can never create something from scratch. He can only corrupt what's already there. In a sense, that's what he does with the nine kings who become the Nazgûl: he possesses them through their nine Rings of Power, until they have become his faithful servants. (And aren't the orcs just mockeries of elves (see 3.4.152)?) But because Sauron is destructive rather than creative, does that mean that he cannot win over good, as Frodo claims here? The green things—the good things—will always grow back.