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Maya Angelou Quotes - Page 33

All Quotes Achievement Adventure Adversity Age Aging Appreciation Art Attitude Beauty Being Alone Birth Black History Bravery Cancer Challenges Change Character Children Choices Christmas Church Communication Community Compassion Confidence Country Courage Creativity Culture Dance Darkness Death Defeat Determination Discipline Diversity Dying Earth Education Effort Ego Electricity Empowerment Encouragement Encouraging Energy Ethics Failing Failure Faith Falling In Love Family Fashion Fear Feelings Fighting Forgiveness Freedom Friendship Generosity Giving Glory God Grace Graduation Gratitude Growing Up Growth Happiness Hard Work Harmony Hate Healing Heart Hell Helping Others History Home Honesty Hope House Humanity Humility Hurt Husband Identity Ignorance Inspirational Inspiring Intelligence Journey Joy Justice Kindness Language Laughter Leadership Learning Leaving Life Listening Live Life Loneliness Love Love Life Lying Memories Modesty Mom Monday Morning Motivation Motivational Moving On Music Overcoming Pain Passion Past Peace Persistence Pleasure Poetry Positive Positive Thinking Positivity Prejudice Pride Purpose Quality Racism Reading Reality Regret Respect Responsibility Romance Running Sacrifice School Segregation Self Esteem Silence Skins Sleep Son Soul Spring Strength Struggle Style Success Survival Sympathy Talent Teaching Thankful Thanksgiving Time Today Travel Trust Truth Virtue Waiting Wall War Water Whining Winning Wisdom Writing Yoga

Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn't be a man who would curse

Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn't be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely.

Mean, Men, Rude

For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.

Inspiring, Reading, Book

FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Oct 30, 2010

If the door has been opened and I've been invited, or if I'm not invited and I somehow know I'm supposed to go in there, I put myself together and go in, praying all the while. I try to learn something before I go in. I try to show some respect of the place I'm going into.

Doors, Trying, Together

Source: www.azcentral.com

Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows me to survive, and better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, and style.

Love, Passion, Profound

"Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

You may not remember what a person said to you, you may not remember what a person did to you, but you will never forget how a person made you feel!

May, Remember, Never Forget

Don't trust people who don't laugh. I don't.

Trust, Drinking, Laughing

"Maya Angelou: Best-Selling Poet Shares Story of Her Life and Work" by Brent Cunningham, www.buffalo.edu. April 30, 1998.

We will sometimes have defeats in life but you can have defeats without being defeated, you could fail without being a failure. When you see failure and defeats as merely part of the process to get to when.

Inspirational, Defeated You, Challenges

It is imperative that young white men and women study the black American history. It is imperative that blacks and whites study the Asian American history.

Men, White Man, Black

"America's Renaissance Woman". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. January 22, 1997.

We are missing Michael. But we do know we had him, and we are the world.

Missing, World, Knows

I think the more we know the better we are. I mean not just facts. The more we know about each other, the closer we are to learn something about our selves.

Mean, Thinking, Self

Source: blues.gr

Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less lonely by your songs, or by the empty pots made less tragic by your tales? If we were a people much given to revealing secrets, we might raise monuments and sacrifice to the memories of our poets, but slavery cured us of that weakness.

Inspirational, Song, Lonely

All people in the world - who are not hermits or mutes - speak words. They speak different languages, but they speak words. They say, "How are you" or "I'm not feeling well" all over the world. These common words - these common elements that we have between us - the writer has to take some verbs and nouns and pronouns and adjectives and adverbs and arrange them in a way that sound fresh.

People, Feelings, Sound

Source: www.washingtoncitypaper.com

Some think, "If I marry this guy who's two inches taller than I am and who has a nice bank account, I won't die. If I buy six cars, I won't die. If I hate Jews, I won't die. If I hate homosexuals, I won't die." They think they will increase their life by shunting misery onto somebody else, but it's just the opposite.

Nice, Hate, Thinking

I'm a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I'm even afraid of it - it's a learned affectation and it's just stuck on me like decals. Now I pray for humility because that comes from inside out.

Religious, Humility, Responsibility

Interview With Marianne Schnall, www.psychologytoday.com. February 17, 2009.

I'm working at trying to be a Christian and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddyit's serious business. It's not something where you think, Oh, I've got it done. I did it all day, hotdiggety. The truth is, all day long you try to do it, try to be it, and then in the evening if you're honest and have a little courage you look at yourself and say, Hmm. I only blew it eighty-six times. Not bad.

Christian, Mother, Buddhist

The country didn't get that way in a week; we've had years and years of getting behind in our economy. So President [Barack] Obama stepped into a hellhole and people wanted him to change it as soon as he came in. But he's got his adversaries to deal with in the House and Senate, so it's not easy.

Country, Years, People

Source: www.washingtoncitypaper.com

I have risked everything to tell the truth. Tell the truth

Telling The Truth

Mother's life flowed radiant. Flourescent-tipped waves on incoming tides.

Mother, Tides, Wave

I'm convinced that I'm a child of God. That's wonderful, exhilarating, liberating, full of promise. But the burden which goes along with that is, I'm convinced that everybody is a child of God. . . . I weep a lot. I thank God I laugh a lot, too. The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry.

Children, Godly, Laughing

The first thing I do in the morning when I awaken is say, 'Thank you, Lord!' I'm grateful to be alive, and I'm going to try to tell the truth as well as I know and tell it as eloquently as I can so that people can hear it.

Inspiring, Morning, Grateful

There's something which impels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.

Soul, Succeed, Courageous

Tragedy, no matter how sad, becomes boring to those not caught in its addictive caress.

Tragedy, Matter, Boring

Maya Angelou (2012). “The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou”, p.894, Modern Library

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

Positive, Sweet, Believe

Maya Angelou, Jeffrey M. Elliot (1989). “Conversations with Maya Angelou”

Fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

Christian, Buddhist, Morning

"Bill Moyers Journal", billmoyers.com. November 21, 1973.

When my grandmother died, I realized that even if I had millions of dollars, I couldn't find her anywhere on earth. My next thought was that I would die. I looked at my life and thought, "I'm afraid to die." I concluded that whether I was afraid or not, I would die. It was one of the most important crossroads in my life, once I realized that no matter what, I would do this thing, the next step was to think, "If I am going to do the most difficult and frightening thing - dying - is it possible that I could do some difficult and impossible things that are good?"

Grandmother, Thinking, Impossible Things

Interview with Oprah Winfrey, www.oprah.com. December 2000.

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