237 Quotes by Ralph Ellison

Man’s hope can paint a purple picture, can transform a soaring vulture into a noble eagle or moaning dove.

Our fate is to become one, and yet many – This is not prophecy, but description.

Then in my mind’s eye I see the bronze statue of the college Founder, the cold Father symbol, his hands outstretched in the breathtaking gesture of lifting a veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave; and I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly in place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding.

Well, few men love the truth or even regard facts so dearly as to let either one upset their picture of the world. Poor Galileo, poor John Jasper; they persecuted one and laughed at the other, but both were witnesses for the truth they professed.

Then too, you’re constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. Or again, you doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren’t simply a phantom in other people’s minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy.

I’m not a separatist. The imagination is integrative. That’s how you make the new – by putting something else with what you’ve got. And I’m unashamedly an American integrationist.

An illusion was creating a counter-illusion. Where would it end? Did they believe their own propaganda? Afterwards.

But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me?

Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled “file and forget,” and I can neither file nor forget.