J.R.R. Tolkien: The future germinating in the dark

The future is impenetrable especially to the wise; what is really important is always hid from contemporaries, and the seeds of what is to be are quietly germinating in the dark while everyone is looking at Stalin or Hitler....

    --J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1971) in a letter, 12 August 1944. From Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Christopher Tolkien and Humphrey Carpenter  (pub. 1981)