"It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow."
"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."
7 likes
Source: Time Magazine, March 27, 1964.
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Ralph Ellison
"Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action."
"Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat."
"Education is all a matter of building bridges."
"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."
"If you can show me how I can cling to that which is real to me, while teaching me a way into the larger society, then and only then will I drop my defenses and hostility, and I will sing your praises and help you to make the desert bear fruit."