"I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed."

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More by Ralph Ellison

“Closed societies are now the flimsiest of illusions, for all the outsiders are demanding in.”

“And I knew that it was better to live out one's own absurdity than to die for that of others.”

“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.”

“Let's not play these kids cheap; let's find out what they have that is a strength. What do they have that you can approach and build a bridge upon? Education is all a matter of building bridges, it seems to me.”

“Articles on Ellison at The New York Times”

“The clock ticked with empty urgency, as though trying to catch up with the time. In the street a siren howled.”

Resonant Thoughts

"It may be that everywhere else in the world, the ascendance of Flower Power began and ended in the sixties, Mr. Speaker, but in Montreal it began in 1971 and ended yesterday when Guy Lafleur retired. …"

— Guy Lafleur

1951–2022

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"Scottish literature begins effectively with Archdeacon Barbour's Bruce some sixty years after Bannockburn, and to the Bruce and Blind Harry's Wallace must be attributed much of the colouring and subse…"

— John Barbour

Politics1824–1901

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"If paparazzi specialized in mathematical celebrities they'd camp outside the dining hall at the IAS and come away with a new batch of pictures every day."

— Cédric Villani

Mathematics1973

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