Power doesn’t have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.
RALPH ELLISONMy hole is warm and full of light.
More Ralph Ellison Quotes
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The antidote to hubris, to overweening pride, is irony, that capacity to discover and systematize ideas.
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It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves.
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I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.
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In order to travel far you have to be detached.
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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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I am nobody but myself.
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I am one of the most irresponsible beings that ever lived. Irresponsibility is part of my invisibility; any way you face it, it is a denial. But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me?
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When American life is most American it is apt to be most theatrical.
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Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.
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We look too much to museums. The sun coming up in the morning is enough.
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When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.
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Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.
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The thing to do is to exploit the meaning of the life you have.
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Injustice wears ever the same harsh face wherever it shows itself.
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I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.
RALPH ELLISON