And the mind that has conceived a plan of living must never lose sight of the chaos against which that pattern was conceived. That goes for societies as well as for individuals.
RALPH ELLISON…and yet I am what they think I am.
More Ralph Ellison Quotes
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I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
RALPH ELLISON -
I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.
RALPH ELLISON -
Light confirms my reality, gives birth to my form…without light I am not only invisible but formless as well; and to be unaware of one’s form is to live a death…the truth is the light and light is the truth.
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What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?
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The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.
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We look too much to museums. The sun coming up in the morning is enough.
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The world is a possibility if only you’ll discover it.
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Education is all a matter of building bridges.
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All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority. The universal in the novel-and isn’t that what we’re all clamoring for these days?-is reached only through the depiction of the specific man in a specific circumstance.
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In those days it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live.
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Injustice wears ever the same harsh face wherever it shows itself.
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Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled ‘file and forget.’
RALPH ELLISON -
If only all the contradictory voices shouting in my head would calm down and sing a song in unison, whatever it was I wouldn’t care as long as they sang without dissonance.
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…and yet I am what they think I am.
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I am nobody but myself.
RALPH ELLISON