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Maya Angelou Quotes - Page 37

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

The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a

The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective.

Life, Sports, Country

Maya Angelou (2009). “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, p.220, Random House

Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.

Life, Growing Up, Years

Maya Angelou (2009). “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, p.267, Random House

The woman who survives intact and happy must be at once tender and tough.

Tough

Maya Angelou (2011). “Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now”, p.6, Bantam

Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies, Im Not Cute Or Built To Fit A Fashion Models Size.

Cute, Fashion, Lying

Maya Angelou (1994). “Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women”, Random House Incorporated

The devil lives in our mistakes, the lord lives in our rights. Who lives in our ignorance, and who wins after all?

Life, Mistake, Ignorance

Be wary when a naked person offers you his shirt

Life, Naked, Shirts

Love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free. A Brave and Startling Truth.

Love, Life, Brave

I thank God that I've lived long enough to see what I have seen, and I pray that people will continue to do better. We are doing better, it may not seem so, but there was a time when people were lynched in the middle of the street and it was not against the law. We are doing better, but we have so much more to do.

Inspiring, Law, Long

You don't have to tell everything you know, but let what you do say be the truth as you understand it.

Knows

Twitter post from Jun 28, 2010

The trouble for the thief is not how to steal the chief’s bugle, but where to blow it.

Life, Blow, Thieves

Maya Angelou (2014). “Even the Stars Look Lonesome”, p.26, Bantam

You know, I never trust people who don't laugh, who said, "I am serious" and act as if they put airplane glue on the back of their hands and stuck the glue to their foreheads. I think, "You're not serious; you're boring as hell."

Serious, Hell, Boring

"Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" with Anderson Cooper, transcripts.cnn.com. August 28, 2013.

'God put the rainbow in the clouds, not just in the sky'... It is wise to realize we already have rainbows in our clouds, or we wouldn't be here. If the rainbow is in the clouds, then in the worst of time, there is the possibility of seeing hope... We can say 'I can be a rainbow in the cloud for someone yet to be.' That may be our calling.

Wise, Clouds, Color

Harrisburg Forum, November 30, 2001.

I have heard it said that winter, too, will pass, that spring is a sign that summer is due at last. See, all we have to do is hang on.

Summer, Spring, Winter

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

Lying, Pretty Woman, Secret

Maya Angelou (2011). “Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women”, p.3, Random House

Through the centuries, we faced down death by daring to hope.

Hopeful, Century, Daring

Human beings are more alike than unalike, and what is true anywhere is true everywhere, yet I encourage travel to as many destinations as possible for the sake of education as well as pleasure.

Travel, Sake, Pleasure

Maya Angelou (2011). “Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now”, p.8, Bantam

I am always talking about the human condition and about American society in particular: what it is like to be human, what makes us weep, what makes us fall and stumble and somehow rise and go on from darkness into darkness and that darkness carpeted.

Fall, Talking, America

Every experience shapes your writing, being stuck in a car on a lonely bridge, or dancing at a prom, being the it girl on the beach, all of those things influence your life, they influence how you write, and the topics you choose to write about.

Girl, Dance, Beach

FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Oct 13, 2012

Your life is much more important that you can imagine... it is your first treasure.

Important, Treasure, Firsts

One must learn to care for oneself first, so that one can then dare to care for someone else.

Care, Firsts, Dare

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

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, without it, you can practice no other.

Practice, Important, Virtue

They who have health have hope; and they who have hope, have everything.

Having Hope

The idea of overcoming is always fascinating to me. It's fascinating because few of us realize how much energy we have expended just to be here today. I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for the overcoming.

Thinking, Ideas, Giving

FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Apr 18, 2014

Having courage does not mean we are unafraid.

Mean, Doe, Unafraid

I think I know that I deserve better. And so I try for better. I'm never so put off that I would ever walk out of a place not having tried the best I could.

Thinking, Deserve Better, Trying

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