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I Am Convinced That Most People Do Not Grow Up ... Our Real Selves, The Children Inside, Are Still Innocent And Shy As Magnolias.
-Maya Angelou
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I Am Convinced That

Maya Angelou
...
I Am Convinced That Most People Do Not Grow Up ... Our Real Selves, The Children Inside, Are Still Innocent And Shy As Magnolias.

Understanding the Quote: "i am convinced that most people do not grow up ... our..."

This quote by Maya Angelou reflects deeply on the theme of children. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Children, Growing Up, Real, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Maya Angelou interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou is celebrated for insightful thoughts on children and growing up. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 86754
Topic
Children
Growing Up
Real
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Home
Thinking
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.
Distance
Lying
Two
In A Long Meter Hymn, A Singer - They Call It 'lays Out A Line.' And Then The Whole Church Joins In In Repeating That Line. And They Form A Wall Of Harmony So Tight, You Can't Wedge A Pin Between It.
Wall
Hymns
Long
Nothing Will Work Unless You Do.
Inspirational
Motivational
Moving On
Listen To Some Good Poetry. You See? It Keeps Us From Thinking We Are Only What Our Blatant Appetites Describe Us As.
Thinking
Appetite
Good Poetry
My Wish For You Is That You Continue. Continue To Be Who And How You Are, To Astonish A Mean World With Your Acts Of Kindness.
Inspirational
Motivational
Kindness
I Long For The Time When All Human History Is Taught As One History, Because It Really Is.
Long
Taught
Humans
My Son Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me. And Through Me - To A Lot Of People.
Son
People
Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me
It Is This Belief In A Power Larger Than Myself And Other Than Myself Which Allows Me To Venture Into The Unknown And Even The Unknowable.
Inspirational
Motivational
Positive
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
I Can See In The Acorn The Oak Tree. I See The Growth, The Rebuilding, The Restoring. I See That Is The American Psyche. There Is So Much We Can Draw Understanding From. One Of The Lessons Is The Development Of Courage. Because Without Courage, You Can't Practice Any Of The Other Virtues Consistently.
Courage
Practice
Tree
I Come As One, But Stand As 10,000.
[librarians] Study Their Field With As Much Determination And As Much Delight As Open-heart Surgeons.
Determination
Heart
Delight
Take A Month And Show Some Kindness For The Folks Who Thought That Blindness Was An Illness That Affected Eyes Alone.
Kindness
Eye
Months
Therefore We Pledge To Bind Ourselves To One Another, To Embrace Our Lowliest, To Keep Company With Our Loneliest, To Educate Our Illiterate, To Feed Our Starving, To Clothe Our Ragged, To Do All Good Things, Knowing That We Are More Than Keepers Of Our Brothers And Sisters. We Are Our Brothers And Sisters
Brother
Knowing
Giving
A Joyful Spirit Is Evidence Of A Grateful Heart.
Grateful
Heart
Spirit
Modesty Is A Learned Affectation. And As Soon As Life Slams The Modest Person Against The Wall, That Modesty Drops.
Wall
Modesty
Slam
The Fact That The Adult American Negro Female Emerges A Formidable Character Is Often Met With Amazement, Distaste And Even Belligerance. It Is Seldom Accepted As An Inevitable Outcome Of The Struggle Won By Survivors, And Deserves Respect If Not Enthusiastic Acceptance.
Inspirational
Motivational
Respect
All Knowledge Is Spendable Currency, Depending On The Market.
Life
Currency
If We Are Bold, Love Strikes Away The Chains Of Fear From Our Souls.
Life
Soul
Old Love
"baby, You Know?" My Mother Once Said To Me. "i Think You're The Greatest Woman I've Ever Met - And I'm Not Including My Mother Or Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt In That." She Said, "you Are Very Intelligent And You're Very Kind, And Those Two Qualities Do Not Often Go Together." Then She Went Across The Street And Got In Her Car, And I Went The Other Way Down To The Streetcar. I Thought, "suppose She's Right. She's Intelligent - And She's Too Mean To Lie." You See, A Parent Has The Chance - And Maybe The Responsibility - To Liberate Her Child. And My Mom Had Liberated Me When I Was 17.
Mom
Mother
Baby
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.'
Encounters
Hell
Persons
Today, The First & Last Of Every Tree/ Speaks To Humankind. Come To Me, Here Beside The River.
Rivers
Tree
Today
As Soon As Healing Takes Place, Go Out And Heal Somebody Else.
Nature
Get Well
Healing
Not Everything You Do Is Going To Be A Masterpiece, But You Get Art There And You Try And Sometimes It Really Happens. The Other Times You’re Just Stretching Your Soul.
Art
Soul
Trying
All Great Acheivements Require Time.
But Still, Like Air, I'll Rise
Recovery
Air
Backstabbing
Just Do Right. Right May Not Be Expedient, It May Not Be Profitable, But It Will Satisfy Your Soul. It Brings You The Kind Of Protection That Bodyguards Can’t Give You. So Try To Live Your Life In A Way That You Will Not Regret Years Of Useless Virtue And Inertia And Timidity. Take Up The Battle. Take It Up. It’s Yours. This Is Your Life. This Is Your World.
Regret
Years
Giving
I'm Grateful To Intelligent People. That Doesn't Mean Educated. That Doesn't Mean Intellectual. I Mean Really Intelligent. What Black Old People Used To Call 'mother Wit' Means Intelligence That You Had In Your Mother's Womb. That's What You Rely On. You Know What's Right To Do.
Life
Mother
Grateful
I Am Convinced That Courage Is The Most Important Of All The Virtues. Because Without Courage, You Cannot Practice Any Other Virtue Consistently. You Can Be Kind For A While; You Can Be Generous For A While; You Can Be Just For A While, Or Merciful For A While, Even Loving For A While. But It Is Only With Courage That You Can Be Persistently And Insistently Kind And Generous And Fair.
Practice
Important
Be Kind
I Believe That Quality Level Is Determined Primarily By The Actual Design Of The Product Itself, Not By Quality Control In The Production Process.
Believe
Design
Quality
Some Of Us Are Timid. We Think We Have Something To Lose So We Don't Try For That Next Hill.
Thinking
Trying
Next
One Of The Wonderful Things About Oprah: She Teaches You To Keep On Stepping.
Wonderful
Teach
Wonderful Things
We Are Here To Love Each Other. That Is Why You Are Alive. That Is What Life Is For.
Alive
Life Is
Love Each Other
Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies.
Lying
Pretty Woman
Secret
We Can Be Better, We Can Be Wiser, We Can Be More Kind. Yes We Have To Change. We Have To Grow Up And Stop Acting Like 10 Years Old. Yes There Is Much To Do, Much To See, Much To Go Into.
Growing Up
Years
Acting
Try To Live Your Life In A Way That You Will Not Regret Years Of Useless Virtue And Inertia And Timidity.
Regret
Years
Live Your Life
Creativity Or Talent, Like Electricity, Is Something I Don't Understand But Something I'm Able To Harness And Use.
Creativity
Use
Able
As Far As I Knew White Women Were Never Lonely, Except In Books. White Men Adored Them, Black Men Desired Them And Black Women Worked For Them.
Lonely
Loneliness
Book
When We Come To It We Must Confess That We Are The Possible We Are The Miraculous, The True Wonders Of This World, That Is When, And Only When We Come To It
World
Wonder
This World
No Not Me Go Find Someone Else To Bring Down
Survival
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."
Mom
Mother
Daughter
To Grow Up Is To Stop Putting Blame On Parents.
Life
Growing Up
Parent
I Am Convinced That Words Are Things, And We Simply Don't Have The Machinery To Measure What They Are. I Believe That Words Are Tangible Things.
Believe
Tangible
Machinery
Since Time Is The One Immaterial Object Which We Cannot Influence Neither Speed Up Nor Slow Down Add To Nor Diminish It Is An Imponderably Valuable Gift.
Gratitude
Time
Add
Be Present In All Things And Thankful For All Things.
Inspirational
Life
Thanksgiving
On The Day Of Your Birth, The Creator Filled Countless Storehouses, Set Aside For Your Use And Yours Alone.
Life
Use
Birth
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.
Life
Courage
Loneliness
The Best Candy Shop A Child Can Be Left Alone In, Is The Library
Inspirational
Children
Book
If You're Going To Live, Leave A Legacy. Make A Mark On The World That Can't Be Erased.
Legacy
World
Mark
You May Not Control All The Events That Happen To You, But You Can Decide Not To Be Reduced By Them. Try To Be A Rainbow In Someone Else's Cloud. Do Not Complain. Make Every Effort To Change Things You Do Not Like. If You Cannot Make A Change, Change The Way You Have Been Thinking. You Might Find A New Solution.
Life
Thinking
Clouds
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.
Life Changing
Glasses
Fifteen
I Like To Speak On Matters Which Matter To Human Beings, And Almost Everything Matters To Human Beings.
Matter
Speak
Humans
A Great Soul Serves Everyone All The Time. A Great Soul Never Dies. It Brings Us Together Again And Again.
Sympathy
Condolences
Together Again
My Heart Is So Heavy When I See The Reality Of The Indian Reservation And As An American, I Know I Am, Too, Responsible.
Heart
Reality
Responsible
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.
Wish
Trying
Undone
I Would Say You Might Encounter Many Defeats But You Must Never Be Defeated, Ever. In Fact, It Might Even Be Necessary To Confront Defeat. It Might Be Necessary, To Get Over It, All The Way Through It, And Go On. I Would Teach Her To Laugh A Lot. Laugh A Lot At The - And The Silliest Things And Be Very, Very Serious. I'd Teach Her To Love Life, I Can Bet You That.
Inspiring
Love Life
Thoughtful
Would You Deny Your Son Or Your Daughter The Ecstasy Of Finding Someone To Love?
Daughter
Son
Finding Someone
No One Has Ever Become Poor From Giving.
Christmas
Giving
Poor
Here On The Pulse Of This New Day You May Have The Grace To Look Up And Out And Into Your Sister's Eyes, Into Your Brother's Face, Your Country And Say Simply Very Simply With Hope Good Morning.
Country
Morning
Brother
If One Is Lucky, A Solitary Fantasy Can Totally Transform One Million Realities.
Inspirational
Life
Motivational
The Only Way You Can Be A Mark Is If You Want Something For Nothing. If You're Greedy, You're Set Up.
Want Something
Way
Greedy
Laugh...it's The Sweetest Thing One Can Do For Oneself And One's Fellow Human Beings.
Laughing
Sweetest
Humans
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