Textual content sourced at The Tolkien Encyclopedia

"and their power was bound up with it, to be subject wholly to it and to last only as 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."

"It is therefore abundantly clear that the primary significance of the Ring is as a source of power. It is a power beyond the imaginings of the mortals in the story; it is power that corrupts utterly; it is power that is founded upon and is totally evil. Associated with that power, the Ring can make the wearer invisible, and can enhance certain senses and dull others. Furthermore, because Sauron is a Maia and dwells in the two realms, the Ring has that aspect of his power as a property, and provides a bridge between the two worlds. --...1ring4.html

"as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of the Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and lust for domination, being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit.....Sauron desired to be a God-King and was held to be this by his servants; if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world."

Total domination was the goal. Total, mindless obedience would be the result. A world enslaved would be his kingdom. And ruin, destruction and the putrefaction of all beauteous and living things would be the fate of Middle-earth.

The Ring is a personification of Sauron's evil will and its use will result in an evil end. This becomes clear in Elrond's comment to Boromir. To use the Ring as a means to attaining an end, albeit howsoever noble, will result in a replacement of one form of evil with another. No good end can come from evil means, and in this respect an essential ingredient of the major moral imperative of Tolkien's Middle-earth is demonstrated.

Essentially the primary symbolism of the Ring is as the will to mere power, seeking to make itself objective by physical force and mechanism, and so also inevitably by lies.