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Difficult Is A Far Cry From Impossible. The Distance Between These Two Lies Hope. Hope And Fear Cannot Occupy The Same Space At The Same Time. Invite One To Stay.

-Maya Angelou

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Difficult Is A Far

Maya Angelou

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Difficult Is A Far Cry From Impossible. The Distance Between These Two Lies Hope. Hope And Fear Cannot Occupy The Same Space At The Same Time. Invite One To Stay.

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We Do The Best We Can With What We Know, And When We Know Better, We Do Better.

When I Am Writing, I Am Trying To Find Out Who I Am, Who We Are, What We're Capable Of, How We Feel, How We Lose And Stand Up, And Go On From Darkness Into Darkness. I'm Trying For That. But I'm Also Trying For The Language. I'm Trying To See How It Can Really Sound.

I Think That That's The Wisest Thing - To Prevent Illness Before We Try To Cure Something.

There Is A Lot Of Ignorance, And I Don't Mean Intellectual Ignorance. I Mean People Think That If You Get Something, It Will Take Away From What I Have. It's Just Ignorance.

The Music Was My Friend, My Lover, My Family.

Love Recognizes No Barriers. It Jumps Hurdles, Leaps Fences, Penetrates Walls To Arrive At Its Destination Full Of Hope.

If I'm Going To A New Country, I Try To Learn Something About The Language And The Culture, So I Don't Just Go Bumbling Over Things.

Let Gratitude Be The Pillow Upon Which You Kneel To Say Your Nightly Prayer. And Let Faith Be The Bridge You Build To Overcome Evil And Welcome Good.

It Is A No-fail, Incontrovertible Reality: If You Get, Give. If You Learn, Teach. You Can't Do Anything With That Except Do It.

I Do Not Think Of Myself As Unusually Creative. I Think We All Come From The Creator, Each Human Being Streaming With The Glory. So Each One Of Us Is Creative.

Love Is A Condition So Powerful; It May Be That Which Pulls The Stars In The Firmament. It May Be That Which Pushes And Urges The Blood In The Veins. Courage: You Have To Have Courage To Love Somebody Because You Risk Everything-ever Ything.

Laugh And Dare To Try To Love Somebody, Starting With Yourself. You Must Love Yourself First, Of Course, And You Must Protect Yourself So That Nobody Overrides You, Overrules You, Or Steps On You. Just Say, 'just A Minute. I'm Worth Everything, Dear.'

Without Courage We Cannot Practice Any Other Virtue With Consistency.

Reduce Your Humanity Through What Jules Feiffer Called Little Murders. The Minute I Hear Someone Trying To Demean Me, I Know That That Person Means To Have My Life. And I Will Not Give It To Them. When A Person Commits These Little Murders, And Then You Catch Him Or Her At It, He Or She Might Say, "oh, I Didn't Mean It." But Make No Mistake: It Is An Assassination Attempt.

People Don't Always Remember What You Say Or Even What You Do, But They Always Remember How You Make Them Feel.

I Dreamt We Walked Together Along The Shore. We Made Satisfying Small Talk And Laughed. This Morning I Found Sand In My Shoe And A Seashell In My Pocket. Was I Only Dreaming?

The Area Where We Are The Greatest Is The Area In Which We Inspire, Encourage And Connect With Another Human Being.

'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.

Precious Jewel, You Glow, You Shine, Reflecting All The Good Things In The World. Just Look At Yourself.

Precious Jewels

Troubles Are A Blessing That Force You To Change, To Believe.

Anything That Works Against You Can Also Work For You Once You Understand The Principle Of Reverse.

I Note The Obvious Differences Between Each Sort And Type, But We Are More Alike, My Friends, Than We Are Unalike.

There Is No Greater Agony Than Bearing An Untold Story Inside You.

A Wise Woman Wishes To Be No One's Enemy; A Wise Woman Refuses To Be Anyone's Victim.

I Like To Speak On Matters Which Matter To Human Beings, And Almost Everything Matters To Human Beings.

When People See The Laughing Face, Even If They're Jealous Of It, Their Burden Is Lightened. But Do It First For Yourself. Laugh And Dare To Try To Love Somebody, Starting With Yourself.

You Can't Be Consistently Fair, Consistently Generous, Consistently Just, Or Consistently Merciful. You Can Be Anything Erratically, But To Be That Thing Time After Time After Time, You Have To Have Courage.

I've Learned That Regardless Of Your Relationship With Your Parents, You'll Miss Them When They're Gone From Your Life.

Dare To Let Your Dreams Reach Beyond You...

We, Unaccustomed To Courage Exiles From Delight Live Coiled In Shells Of Loneliness Until Love Leaves Its High Holy Temple And Comes Into Our Sight To Liberate Us Into Life.

In All The Institutions I Try To Be Present And Accountable For All I Do And Leave Undone. I Know That Eventually I Shall Have To Be Present And Accountable N The Presence Of God. I Do Not Wish To Be Found Wanting.

Language. I Loved It. And For A Long Time I Would Think Of Myself, Of My Whole Body, As An Ear.

Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

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

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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.

Just Because I Am Wheelchair-bound Doesn't Mean I Don't Get Around.

This Is What I Am Learning, At 82 Years Old: The Main Thing Is To Be In Love With The Search For Truth.

I Have Need Of A Friend. There Is One And Only One Who Will Give The Air From His Failing Lungs For My Body's Mend. And That One Is My Love.

Be Courageous, But Not Foolhardy. Walk Proud As You Are.

In Today's Climate In Our Country, Which Is Sickened With The Pollution Of Pollution, Threatened With The Prominence Of Aids, Riddled With Burgeoning Racism, Rife With Growing Huddles Of The Homeless, We Need Art And We Need Art In All Forms. We Need All Methods Of Art To Be Present, Everywhere Present, And All The Time Present.

The Poetry You Read Has Been Written For You, Each Of You - Black, White, Hispanic, Man, Woman, Gay, Straight.

The Question Is Not How To Survive, But How To Thrive With Passion, Compassion, Humor And Style.

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To Know And Not To Do Is In Fact Not To Know. We Need To Be Active Instruments Against Evil. We Need To Do.

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History, Despite Its Wrenching Pain, Cannot Be Unlived, But If Faced With Courage, Need Not Be Lived Again.

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We Are Only As Blind As We Want To Be.

Happiness Is A Chance To Talk To A Friend, To Hear Good Music, To Have A Good Glass Of Wine. Happiness Is A Chance To Be Myself And To Find People With Whom I Agree Or Who I Don't Agree But I Can Learn Something.

I Believe That Quality Level Is Determined Primarily By The Actual Design Of The Product Itself, Not By Quality Control In The Production Process.

I'm Really Saddened By The Attempts To Separate And Polarize. This Is A Time When We Have Hungry People, People Out Of Work, And People Out Of Spirit. This Is A Time Where We Need To Uplift, Not To Separate.

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Every Person Needs To Take One Day Away. A Day In Which One Consciously Separates The Past From The Future. Jobs, Family, Employers, And Friends Can Exist One Day Without Any One Of Us, And If Our Egos Permit Us To Confess, They Could Exist Eternally In Our Absence. Each Person Deserves A Day Away In Which No Problems Are Confronted, No Solutions Searched For. Each Of Us Needs To Withdraw From The Cares Which Will Not Withdraw From Us.

Find A Beautiful Piece Of Art. If You Fall In Love With Van Gogh Or Matisse Or John Oliver Killens, Or If You Fall Love With The Music Of Coltrane, The Music Of Aretha Franklin, Or The Music Of Chopin - Find Some Beautiful Art And Admire It, And Realize That That Was Created By Human Beings Just Like You, No More Human, No Less.

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There Is A Lot Of Ignorance, And I Don't Mean Intellectual Ignorance. I Mean People Think That If You Get Something, It Will Take Away From What I Have. It's Just Ignorance.

This Is My Life. It Is My One Time To Be Me. I Want To Experience Every Good Thing.

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I, With Millions Of Other Americans, Have The Same Dream Martin Luther King Jr. Had; When I Wake Up I Wish Some Of The Things I Dreamt Would Be True. I Wish That Little Black And White Boys And Girls Would Hold Hands Without Being Shocked At Their Nearness To Each Other And Say In A Natural Way, "we Have Overcome.

The Trouble For The Thief Is Not How To Steal The Chief’s Bugle, But Where To Blow It.

I've Learned That Regardless Of Your Relationship With Your Parents, You'll Miss Them When They're Gone From Your Life.

I Learned A Long Time Ago The Wisest Thing I Can Do Is Be On My Own Side, Be An Advocate For Myself And Others Like Me.

The More You Know Of Your History, The More Liberated You Are.

My People Couldn't Have Survived Slavery Without Having Hope That It Would Get Better. And There's Some Songs From The 19th And 18th Century That Say [sings], "by And By, By And By, I Will Lay Down, This Heavy Load." And I Mean, So Many Songs That Spoke Of Hope And Understand It Better By And By. Amazing Songs. So That The Slaves, Just Knowing That He, She, Did Not Have The Right Legally To Walk Within One Inch Away From Where The Slave Owner Dictated, And Yet The Same Person, Wrote And Sang With Fervor, "if The Lord Wants Somebody, Here Am I, Send Me." It's Amazing.

My Great Hope Is To Laugh As Much As I Cry; To Get My Work Done And Try To Love Somebody And Have The Courage To Accept The Love In Return.

We Grow Despite The Horror That We Feed Upon Our Own Tomorrow. We Grow.

Look What You've Already Come Through! Don't Deny It. Say I'm Stronger Than I Thought I Was

Nobody Can Enjoy Unless We All Enjoy, Truly Enjoy.

I Could Fall In Love With A Sumo Wrestler If He Told Stories And Made Me Laugh. Obviously, It Would Be Easier If Someone Was African-american And Lived Next Door And Went To The Same Church. Because Then I Wouldn't Have To Translate.

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I Speak A Number Of Languages, But None Are More Beautiful To Me Than English.

Happiness Is A Chance To Talk To A Friend, To Hear Good Music, To Have A Good Glass Of Wine. Happiness Is A Chance To Be Myself And To Find People With Whom I Agree Or Who I Don't Agree But I Can Learn Something.

The Children To Whom We Read Simple Stories May Or May Not Show Gratitude, But Each Boon We Give Strengthens The Pillars Of The World.

I Have Respect For The Past, But I'm A Person Of The Moment.

Let Us Live So We Do Not Regret Years Of Inertia And Ignorance, So When We Die We Can Say All Of Our Energy Was Dedicated To The Noble Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit, Beginning With My Own.

You Build Your 'courage Muscle' Daily, By Being Courageous In Little Things. Just Do Right.

Inscribed On The Temple Of Apollo

Self Confidence

Won't It Be Wonderful When Black History And Native American History And Jewish History And All Of U.s. History Is Taught From One Book. Just U.s. History.

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One Isn't Born With Courage. One Develops It By Doing Small Courageous Things.

I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

I Look At Some Of The Great Novelists, And I Think The Reason They Are Great Is That They're Telling The Truth. The Fact Is They're Using Made-up Names, Made-up People, Made-up Places, And Made-up Times, But They're Telling The Truth About The Human Being- What We Are Capable Of, What Makes Us Lose, Laugh, Weep, Fall Down, And Gnash Our Teeth And Wring Our Hands And Kill Each Other And Love Each Other.

I'm Happy To Be A Writer - Of Prose, Poetry, Every Kind Of Writing. Every Person In The World Who Isn't A Recluse, Hermit Or Mute Uses Words. I Know Of No Other Art Form That We Always Use.

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If You're For The Right Thing, You Do It Without Thinking.

Just Because I Am Wheelchair-bound Doesn't Mean I Don't Get Around.

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.

The Hope, The Hope That Lives In The Breast Of The Black American, Is Just So Tremendous That It Overwhelms Me Sometimes.

We Are More Alike Than Unalike.

We Need To Haunt The House Of History And Listen Anew To The Ancestors' Wisdom.

Words Of Wisdom

Whatever You Want To Do, If You Want To Be Great At It, You Have To Love It And Be Able To Make Sacrifices For It.

I Try To Live What I Consider A "poetic Existence." That Means I Take Responsibility For The Air I Breathe And The Space I Take Up. I Try To Be Immediate, To Be Totally Present For All My Work.

The Black Female Is Assaulted In Her Tender Years By All Those Common Forces Of Nature At The Same Time She Is Caught In The Tripartite Crossfire Of Masculine Prejudice, White Illogical Hate And Black Lack Of Power.

I Think That Each Of Us Is So Much Alike, And Yet At The Same Time We Are So Different, And I Have A Feeling That If You Encountered Difficulty, And I With My Age Encountered The Same Difficulty, I Would Respond One Way, And You Would Respond Another. Neither Would Be Right Or Wrong. It's Just That Each Of Us Is Courageous, And That's What I Encourage, Courage, And The Courage To See, And The Courage To Say To Oneself What One Has Seen. Don't Be In Denial.

Whether You Are Happy Or Whether You Are Sad, It Is Wise To Remember You Are Really In Process.

Some Critics Will Write 'maya Angelou Is A Natural Writer' - Which Is Right After Being A Natural Heart Surgeon.

Home Is That Youthful Region Where A Child Is The Only Real Living Inhabitant. Parents, Siblings, And Neighbors Are Mysterious Apparitions Who Come, Go, And Do Strange Unfathomable Thing In And Around The Child, The Region's Only Enfranchised Citizen.

If You Are Always Trying To Be Normal You Will Never Know How Amazing You Can Be.

Reality Has Changed Chameleonlike Before My Eyes So Many Times That I Have Learned, Or Am Learning, To Trust Almost Anything Except What Appears To Be So.

Listen To Some Good Poetry. You See? It Keeps Us From Thinking We Are Only What Our Blatant Appetites Describe Us As.

In An Unfamiliar Culture, It Is Wise To Offer No Innovations, No Suggestions, Or Lessons.

Life Loves The Person Who Dares To Live It.

I Never Have Written Every Day. When I'm Writing A Book, I Write Monday Through Friday. I Always Try To Take Saturday And Pretend To Have Some Sanity.

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.

My People Couldn't Have Survived Slavery Without Having Hope That It Would Get Better. And There's Some Songs From The 19th And 18th Century That Say [sings], "by And By, By And By, I Will Lay Down, This Heavy Load." And I Mean, So Many Songs That Spoke Of Hope And Understand It Better By And By. Amazing Songs. So That The Slaves, Just Knowing That He, She, Did Not Have The Right Legally To Walk Within One Inch Away From Where The Slave Owner Dictated, And Yet The Same Person, Wrote And Sang With Fervor, "if The Lord Wants Somebody, Here Am I, Send Me." It's Amazing.

I Am Overwhelmed By The Grace And Persistence Of My People.

Love Is That Condition In The Human Spirit So Profound That It Empowers Us To Develop Courage; To Trust That Courage And Build Bridges With It; To Trust Those Bridges And Cross Over Them So We Can Attempt To Reach Each Other.

Love Is A Condition So Powerful; It May Be That Which Pulls The Stars In The Firmament. It May Be That Which Pushes And Urges The Blood In The Veins. Courage: You Have To Have Courage To Love Somebody Because You Risk Everything-ever Ything.

I Go To A Hotel And Try To Get There By 5:30 In The Morning. I Keep A Dictionary, A Thesaurus, A Bible, A Deck Of Playing Cards, A Bottle Of Sherry, And Stacks Of Yellow Sticky Pads. I Shut Myself In For Six, Seven Hours. I Have An Arrangement With The Hotel That No One May Go In My Room. After Three Or Four Months, They Might Slip Notes Under My Door Like, "dear Ms. Angelou, Please Let Us Change The Linens. We Think They Might Be Molding." It's Probably True. I Let Them In If They Promise Not To Touch Anything Other Then The Bed.

I'm Just Someone Who Likes Cooking And For Whom Sharing Food Is A Form Of Expression.

I've Learned That Every Day You Should Reach Out And Touch Someone. People Love A Warm Hug, Or Just A Friendly Pat On The Back.

Had I Not Had My Grandmother, Who Dared To Be My Rainbow In The Clouds, I Would Have Been Just Another Sexually Abused Barefoot Black Girl On The Roads Of Arkansas.

Be Courageous, But Not Foolhardy. Walk Proud As You Are.

Love Is Many Things. It Is Varied. One Thing Love Is Not, Is Unsure.

If You Have Done The Best You Can Do And If You Have Gotten All You Could Extract From Something, You Have Given All You Had To Give, Then The Time Has Come When You Can Do No More Than Say Thank You And Move On.

I Have Found That Among Its Other Benefits, Giving Liberates The Soul Of The Giver.

While The Rest Of The World Has Been Improving Technology, Ghana Has Been Improving The Quality Of Man's Humanity To Man.

My Life Has Been Long, And Believing That Life Loves The Liver Of It, I Have Dared To Try Many Things, Sometimes Trembling, But Daring Still.

I've Learned That You Can Tell A Lot About A Person By The Way He/she Handles These Three Things: A Rainy Day, Lost Luggage And Tangled Christmas Tree Lights. I've Learned That Making A 'living' Is Not The Same Thing As 'making A Life'. I've Learned That Whenever I Decide Something With An Open Heart, I Usually Make The Right Decision. I've Learned That You Shouldn't Go Through Life With A Catcher's Mitt On Both Hands; You Need To Be Able To Throw Some Things Back.

I Know, That Since Life Is Our Most Precious Gift, And As Far As We Can Be Absolutely Certain, It's Given To Us To Live But Once, Let Us So Live We Will Not Regret Years Of Useless Virtue, And Inertia, And Timidity, And Ignorance, And In Our Last Moments We Can Say: 'all My Life, All My Conscious Energies, Have Been Dedicated To The Most Noble Cause In The World, The Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit - Beginning With My Own'.

Whining Is Not Only Graceless, But It Can Be Dangerous. It Can Alert A Brute That A Victim Is In The Neighborhood.

I Don't Think Modesty Is A Very Good Virtue, If It Is A Virtue At All. A Modest Person Will Drop The Modesty In A Minute. It's A Learned Affectation.

The Trouble For The Thief Is Not How To Steal The Chief’s Bugle, But Where To Blow It.

Hold Those Things That Tell Your History And Protect Them.

You Can't Really Know Where You Are Going Until You Know Where You Have Been.

Where You Are Going

We Do The Best We Can With What We Know, And When We Know Better, We Do Better.

When A Person Is Going Through Hell, And She Encounters Someone Who Went Through Hellish Hell And Survived, Then She Can Say, 'mine Is Not So Bad As All That. She Came Through, And So Can I.'

The Intensity With Which Young People Live Demands That They "blank Out" As Often As Possible.

A Woman Who Is Convinced That She Deserves To Accept Only The Best Challenges Herself To Give The Best. Then She Is Living Phenomenally.

The Dread Of Futility Has Been My Life-long Plague.

The Ache For Home Lives In All Of Us, The Safe Place Where We Can Go As We Are And Not Be Questioned.

I Don't Trust Any Revolution Where Love Is Not Allowed.

I Learned A Long Time Ago The Wisest Thing I Can Do Is Be On My Own Side, Be An Advocate For Myself And Others Like Me.

He Thrived With Passion And Compassion, Humor And Style. We Had Him Whether We Know Who He Was Or Did Not Know, He Was Ours And We Were His.

I Think That Each Of Us Is So Much Alike, And Yet At The Same Time We Are So Different, And I Have A Feeling That If You Encountered Difficulty, And I With My Age Encountered The Same Difficulty, I Would Respond One Way, And You Would Respond Another. Neither Would Be Right Or Wrong. It's Just That Each Of Us Is Courageous, And That's What I Encourage, Courage, And The Courage To See, And The Courage To Say To Oneself What One Has Seen. Don't Be In Denial.

I Get Up In The Morning, And I'm Reluctant To Turn On The Television.

Making A Decision To Write Was A Lot Like Deciding To Jump Into A Frozen Lake.

We Have It In Us To Be Splendid.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

I Find It Interesting That The Meanest Life, The Poorest Existence, Is Attributed To God's Will, But As Human Beings Become More Affluent, As Their Living Standard And Style Begin To Ascend The Material Scale, God Descends The Scale Of Responsibility At Commensurate Speed.

Anyone Of Us Can Be A Rainbow In Somebody's Clouds. I Want The University Of Cincinnati To Be A Rainbow In The Clouds. The University Of Cincinnati Is Really A Possibility Of Hope; It Is A Rainbow.

Prepare Yourself So That You Can Be A Rainbow In Somebody Else's Cloud.

I Know Some People Might Think It Odd - Unworthy Even - For Me To Have Written A Cookbook, But I Make No Apologies. The U.s. Poet Laureate Billy Collins Thought I Had Demeaned Myself By Writing Poetry For Hallmark Cards, But I Am The People's Poet So I Write For The People.

The Honorary Duty Of A Human Being Is To Love.

I Also Wear A Hat Or A Very Tightly Pulled Head Tie When I Write. I Suppose I Hope By Doing That I Will Keep My Brains From Seeping Out Of My Scalp And Running In Great Gray Blobs Down My Neck, Into My Ears, And Over My Face.

Have Enough Courage To Trust Love One More Time And Always One More Time.

I Wasn't A Pretty Girl. I Was Six Feet Tall At 15, You Know.

I Love A Hebrew National Hot Dog With An Ice-cold Corona - No Lime. If The Phone Rings, I Won't Answer Until I'm Done.

You May Encounter Many Defeats, But You Must Not Be Defeated. Please Remember That Your Difficulties Do Not Define You. They Simply Strengthen Your Ability To Overcome.

My Mother Had Said Me, "all Right, You've Been Raised, So Don't Let Anybody Else Raise You. You Know The Difference Between Right And Wrong. Do Right. And Remember - You Can Always Come Home." And She Continued To Liberate Me Until She Died. On The Night She Died, I Went To The Hospital. I Told My Mom, "let Me Tell You About Yourself. You Deserved A Great Daughter, And You Got One. And You Liberated Me To Be One. So If It's Time For You To Go, You May Have Done Everything God Brought You Here To Do."

Even Here In America, We Felt The Cool, Refreshing Breeze Of Freedom When Nelson Mandela Took The Seat Of Presidency In His Country Where Formerly He Was Not Even Allowed To Vote. We Were Enlarged By Tears Of Pride As We Saw Nelson Mandela's Former Prison Guards Invited, Courteously, By Him To Watch From The Front Rows His Inauguration.

Black People Comprehend The South. We Understand Its Weight. It Has Rested On Our Backs... I Knew That My Heart Would Break If Ever I Put My Foot Down On That Soil, Moist, Still, With Old Hurts. I Had To Face The Fear/loathing At Its Source Or It Would Consume Me Whole.

Blacks Concede That Hurrawing, Jibing, Jiving, Signifying, Disrespecting, Cursing, Even Outright Insults Might Be Acceptable Under Particular Conditions, But Aspersions Cast Against One's Family Call For Immediate Attack.

I Did Then What I Knew How To Do. Now That I Know Better, I Do Better.

No Not Me Go Find Someone Else To Bring Down

We Are Missing Michael. But We Do Know We Had Him, And We Are The World.

I Love Wisdom. And You Can Never Be Great At Anything Unless You Love It. Not Be In Love With It, But Love The Thing, Admire The Thing. And It Seems That If You Love The Thing, And You Don't Just Want To Possess It, It Will Find You.

Each Of Us Has That Right, That Possibility, To Invent Ourselves Daily. If A Person Does Not Invent Herself, She Will Be Invented. So, To Be Bodacious Enough To Invent Ourselves Is Wise.

You Can Only Become Great At Something You Are Willing To Sacrifice For

I Don't Know If I Continue, Even Today, Always Liking Myself. But What I Learned To Do Many Years Ago Was To Forgive Myself. It Is Very Important For Every Human Being To Forgive Herself Or Himself Because If You Live, You Will Make Mistakes - It Is Inevitable. But Once You Do And You See The Mistake, Then You Forgive Yourself And Say, 'well, If I'd Known Better I'd Have Done Better,' That's All.

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.

In Diversity There Is Beauty And There Is Strength.

Having Courage Does Not Mean We Are Unafraid.

I Am A Woman Phenomenally, Phenomenal Woman That Is Your Grandmother, That Is Your Mother, That Is Your Sister, That Is You And That Is Me.

Phenomenal Woman

Nothing Will Work Unless You Do.

You May Be Pretty Or Plain, Heavy Or Thin, Gay Or Straight, Poor Or Rich. But Remember This: In An Election, Every Voice Is Equally Powerful -- Don't Underestimate Your Vote. Voting Is The Great Equalizer.

I Never Have Written Every Day. When I'm Writing A Book, I Write Monday Through Friday. I Always Try To Take Saturday And Pretend To Have Some Sanity.

I Can Be Changed By What Happens To Me. But I Refuse To Be Reduced By It.

The Future Is Plump With Promise.

I Might Have It At Six-fifteen A.m. Just As Soon As I Get In, But Usually It's About Eleven O'clock When I'll Have A Glass Of Sherry.

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.

You Don't Want Modesty, You Want Humility. Humility Comes From Inside Out. It Says Someone Was Here Before Me And I'm Here Because I've Been Paid For. I Have Something To Do And I Will Do That Because I'm Paying For Someone Else Who Has Yet To Come.

My Life Has Been Long, And Believing That Life Loves The Liver Of It, I Have Dared To Try Many Things, Sometimes Trembling, But Daring Still.

Whenever Something Went Wrong When I Was Young - If I Had A Pimple Or If My Hair Broke - My Mom Would Say, 'sister Mine, I'm Going To Make You Some Soup.' And I Really Thought The Soup Would Make My Pimple Go Away Or My Hair Stronger.

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.

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.

If A Person - Any Human Being - Is Told Often Enough, "you Are Nothing. You Are Nothing. You Account For Nothing. You Count For Nothing. You Are Less Than A Human Being. I Have No Visibility Of You", The Person Finally Begins To Believe It.

Creativity Or Talent, Like Electricity, Is Something I Don’t Understand But Something I’m Able To Harness And Use. While Electricity Remains A Mystery, I Know I Can Plug Into It And Light Up A Cathedral Or A Synagogue Or An Operating Room And Use It To Help Save A Life. Or I Can Use It To Electrocute Someone. Like Electricity, Creativity Makes No Judgment. I Can Use It Productively Or Destructively. The Important Thing Is To Use It. You Can’t Use Up Creativity. The More You Use It, The More You Have.

I Want To Be Representative Of My Race-the Human Race. I Have A Chance To Show How Kind We Can Be, How Intelligent And Generous We Can Be.

Look Heavenward And Speak The Word Aloud. Peace. We Look At Our World And Speak The Word Aloud. Peace.

Just As Hope Rings Through Laughter, It Can Also Shine Through Tears.

Once You Appreciate One Of Your Blessings, One Of Your Senses, Your Sense Of Hearing, Then You Begin To Respect The Sense Of Seeing And Touching And Tasting, You Learn To Respect All The Senses.

Oh, The Holiness Of Always Being The Injured Party. The Historically Oppressed Can Find Not Only Sanctity But Safety In The Stateof Victimization. When Access To A Better Life Has Been Denied Often Enough, And Successfully Enough, One Can Use The Rejection As An Excuse To Cease All Efforts. After All, One Reckons, "they" Don't Want Me, "they" Accept Their Own Mediocrity And Refuse My Best, "they" Don't Deserve Me.

I Pray For Humility Because That Comes From Inside Out. And What Humility Does For One, Is It Reminds Us That There Are People Before Me. I Have Already Been Paid For. And What I Need To Do Is Prepare Myself So That I Can Pay For Someone Else Who Has Yet To Come, But Who May Be Here And Needs Me.

In The 16th Century, [niccolò] Machiavelli - In An Attempt To Get Back In The Good Graces Of The Powerful - Wrote A Slim Volume Called The Prince. In That Book He Showed The Powers That Be How To Control The People. That Book Is A Statement: Separate And Rule, Divide And Conquer. That's Five Hundred Years Ago And It Still Works, Because We Allow Ourselves To Be Lead Around With Holes Through Our Noses.

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