Quote of the Day (Ralph Ellison, on Americans’ ‘Limited Attention to History’)

“At best Americans give but a limited attention to history. Too much happens too rapidly, and before we can evaluate it, or exhaust its meaning or pleasure, there is something new to concern us. Ours is the tempo of the motion picture, not that of the still camera, and we waste experience as we wasted the forest.” —American novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison (1913-1994), Shadow and Act (1964)

Ours is no longer “the tempo of the motion picture,” or even the 24/7 news cycle, but instead TikTok. Fear for any nation that not only no longer remembers the past but isn’t even inclined to learn about it.

Quote of the Day (Ralph Ellison, on the Truth)

“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. Maybe it's just that some of us have had certain facts and truths slapped up against our heads so hard and so often that we have to see them and pay our respects to their reality.”—American novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison (1913-1994), Juneteenth (1999)

Quote of the Day (Ralph Ellison, on How ‘Humanity is Won’)

"Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat." —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)