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I Am Convinced That Most People Do Not Grow Up...we Marry And Dare To Have Children And Call That Growing Up. I Think What We Do Is Mostly Grow Old. We Carry Accumulation Of Years In Our Bodies, And On Our Faces, But Generally Our Real Selves, The Children Inside, Are Innocent And Shy As Magnolias.

-Maya Angelou

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I Am Convinced That

Maya Angelou

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I Am Convinced That Most People Do Not Grow Up...we Marry And Dare To Have Children And Call That Growing Up. I Think What We Do Is Mostly Grow Old. We Carry Accumulation Of Years In Our Bodies, And On Our Faces, But Generally Our Real Selves, The Children Inside, Are Innocent And Shy As Magnolias.

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

Do The Best You Can Until You Know Better. Then When You Know Better, Do Better.

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.

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

If Growing Up Is Painful For The Southern Black Girl, Being Aware Of Her Displacement Is The Rust On The Razor That Threatens The Throat. It Is An Unnecessary Insult.

You Can't Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have.

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. But If You're In Love With The Thing, It May Run Like Hell Away From You.

You Will Face Many Defeats In Your Life, But Never Let Yourself Be Defeated.

But From A Distance. I Would Have Left You Whole And Wholly For The Delectation Of Those Who Wanted More And Cared Less.

I Always Felt, If I Can Get To A Library, I'll Be Ok.

People Have To Feel Needed. Frequently, We Just Offer A Job And 'perks.' We Don't Always Offer People A Purpose. When People Feel There Is A Purpose And That They're Needed, There's Not Much Else To Do Except Let Them Do The Work.

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Mother's Life Flowed Radiant. Flourescent-tipped Waves On Incoming Tides.

Intelligence Is A Separate Gift, For The Benefit Of Students, So That They May Think Of Themselves As Intellectual And Not Very Intelligent, Or Intelligent And Not Very Intellectual. One Hopes, Of Course, That They Try To Bring The Two Virtues, The Two Elements, Into Their Lives At The Same Time.

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All Men Are Prepared To Accomplish The Incredible If Their Ideals Are Threatened.

There Are Some Nights When Sleep Plays Coy, Aloof And Disdainful. And All The Wiles That I Employ To Win Its Service To My Side Are Useless As Wounded Pride, And Much More Painful.

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Education Is A Process That Goes On 'til Death. The Moment You See Someone Who Knows She Has Found The One True Way, And Can Call All The Others False, Then You Know You're In The Company Of An Ignoramus.

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No Not Me Go Find Someone Else To Bring Down

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Success Is Liking Yourself, Liking What You Do, And Liking How You Do It.

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

Don't Let The Man Bring You Down.

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I Encourage You To Live With Life. Be Courageous, Adventurous. Give Us A Tomorrow, More Than We Deserve.

Self-pity In Its Early Stage Is As Snug As A Feather Mattress. Only When It Hardens Does It Become Uncomfortable.

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I Had To Trust Life And Believe That Life Loved The Person Who Dared To Live It.

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

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Live As Though Life Was Created For You.

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Elimination Of Illiteracy Is As Serious An Issue To Our History As The Abolition Of Slavery.

Abolition Of Slavery

When Teachers Or People In Authority Put Me Down Or In One Way Or Another Tried To Make Me Feel Less Than Equal To What They Thought I Should Be - My Mother Was On My Side. It Was Amazing.

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Hoping For The Best

Every Day Offers You 10,000 Reasons To Cry, But If You Can Find Just One Reason To Laugh Then You Will Be All Right.

I Will Look After You And I Will Look After Anybody You Say Needs To Be Looked After, Any Way You Say. I Am Here. I Brought My Whole Self To You. I Am Your Mother.

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Finding Someone

It's In The Click Of My Heels, The Bend Of My Hair, The Palm Of My Hand, The Need Of My Care, 'cause I'm A Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, That's Me.

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Life Loves The Liver Of It.

My Encouragement To You Is To Go Tomorrow To The Library.

Don't Trust People Who Don't Laugh. I Don't.

If Funkytown Was A Trailerpark, This Guy Would Be A Double-wide.

I Have No Modesty. Modesty Is A Learned Affectation. It's Like Decal Stuck Up On A Person.

Mostly, What I Have Learned So Far About Aging, Despite The Creakiness Of One's Bones And Cragginess Of One's Once-silken Skin, Is This: Do It. By All Means, Do It.

All Riddles Are Blues, / And All Blues Are Sad, / And I'm Only Mentioning / Some Blues I've Had.

If We All Hold On To The Mistake, We Can't See Our Own Glory In The Mirror Because We Have The Mistake Between Our Faces And The Mirror; We Can't See What We're Capable Of Being. You Can Ask Forgiveness Of Others, But In The End The Real Forgiveness Is In One's Own Self.

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They Who Have Health Have Hope; And They Who Have Hope, Have Everything.

There Is A Place In You That You Must Keep Inviolate, A Place That You Must Keep Clean. A Place Where You Say To Any Intruder, "back Up, Don't You Know I'm A Child Of God.

If You Want To Liberate Someone, Love Them.not Be In Love With Them - That's Dangerous. If You're In Love With Your Children, You're In Their Lives All The Time. Leave Them Alone! Let Them Grow And Make Some Mistakes. Tell Them, "you Can Come Home. My Arms Are Here - And My Mouth Is Too." When You Really Love Them, You Don't Want To Possess Them. You Don't Say, "i Love You And I Want You Here With Me."

Women Been Gittin' Pregnant Ever Since Eve Ate That Apple.

I Think A Hero Is Any Person Really Intent On Making This A Better Place For All People.

The Need For Change Bulldozed A Road Down The Center Of My Mind.

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

The Woman Who Survives Intact And Happy Must Be At Once Tender And Tough.

I Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Laugh.

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

How Important It Is For Us To Recognize And Celebrate Our Heroes And She-roes!

Without Courage You Can't Practice Any Other Virtue Consistently.

The Thing To Do, It Seems To Me, Is To Prepare Yourself So You Can Be A Rainbow In Somebody Else's Cloud. Somebody Who May Not Look Like You. May Not Call God The Same Name You Call God - If They Call God At All. I May Not Dance Your Dances Or Speak Your Language. But Be A Blessing To Somebody. That's What I Think.

Because Of Technological Breakthroughs, The Society Will Need Fewer And Fewer Unskilled Laborers.

Love Is Like A Virus. It Can Happen To Anybody At Any Time.

I Do Not Believe That The Accident Of Birth Makes People Sisters And Brothers. It Makes Them Siblings. Gives Them Mutuality Of Parentage. Sisterhood And Brotherhood Are Conditions People Have To Work At. It's A Serious Matter. You Compromise, You Give, You Take, You Stand Firm, And You're Relentless...and It Is An Investment. Sisterhood Means If You Happen To Be In Burma And I Happen To Be In San Diego And I'm Married To Someone Who Is Very Jealous And You're Married To Somebody Who Is Very Possessive, If You Call Me In The Middle Of The Night, I Have To Come.

Without Courage You Cannot Practice Any Of The Other Virtues.

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

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.

When I Was Asked To Do Something Good, I Often Say Yes, I'll Try, Yes, I'll Do My Best. And Part Of That Is Believing, If God Loves Me, If God Made Everything From Leaves To Seals And Oak Trees, Then What Is It I Can't Do?

Take A Day To Heal From The Lies You've Told Yourself And The Ones That Have Been Told To You.

Hatred Is The Ballast Of The Rock Which Lies Upon Our Necks And Underfoot.

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Lord Keep Your Arm Around My Shoulder And Your Hand Over My Mouth.

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To Grow Up Is To Stop Putting Blame On Parents.

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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.

You Don't Need Another Person, Place Or Thing To Make You Whole. God Already Did That. Your Job Is To Know It.

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.

When Members Of A Society Wish To Secure That Society's Rich Heritage They Cherish Their Arts And Respect Their Artists. The Esteem With Which We Regard The Multiple Cultures Offered In Our Country Enhances Our Possibilities For Healthy Survival And Continued Social Development.

You Want Me To Do Something... Tell Me I Can't Do It.

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When The Human Race Neglects Its Weaker Members, When The Family Neglects Its Weakest One - It's The First Blow In A Suicidal Movement.

It May In Fact Be Utterly Impossible To Be Successful Without Helping Others To Become Successful.

I've Had People Explain To Me What One Of My Poems Meant, And I've Been Surprised That It Means That To Them. If A Person Can Use A Poem Of Mine To Interpret Her Life Or His Life, Good. I Can't Control That. Nor Would I Want To.

To Take A Few Nouns, And A Few Pronouns, And Adverbs And Adjectives, And Put Them Together, Ball Them Up, And Throw Them Against The Wall To Make Them Bounce. That's What Norman Mailer Did. That's What James Baldwin Did, And Joan Didion Did, And That's What I Do - That's What I Mean To Do.

A Woman In Harmony With Her Spirit Is Like A River Flowing. She Goes Where She Will Without Pretense And Arrives At Her Destination Prepared To Be Herself And Only Herself

I Believe That Each Of Us Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory. So At This Wonderful, Young Age Of 65, I Don't Know Yet What The Lord Has For Me To Do. I Try To Live Up To The Energy And To The Calling, But I Wouldn't Dare Say I Have Even Scratched The Surface Yet.

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.

I've Always Written. There's A Journal Which I Kept From About 9 Years Old. The Man Who Gave It To Me Lived Across The Street From The Store And Kept It When My Grandmother's Papers Were Destroyed. I'd Written Some Essays. I Loved Poetry, Still Do. But I Really, Really Loved It Then.

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.

But A Caged Bird Stands On The Grave Of Dreams.

We Have To Confront Ourselves. Do We Like What We See In The Mirror? And, According To Our Light, According To Our Understanding, According To Our Courage, We Will Have To Say Yea Or Nay - And Rise!

You Are The Sum Total Of Everything You've Ever Seen, Heard, Eaten, Smelled, Been Told, Forgot - It's All There. Everything Influences Each Of Us, And Because Of That I Try To Make Sure That My Experiences Are Positive.

People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

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.

One Isn't Necessarily Born With Courage, But One Is Born With Potential. Without Courage, We Cannot Practice Any Other Virtue With Consistency. We Can't Be Kind, True, Merciful, Generous, Or Honest.

When Things Were Very Bad His Soul Just Crawled Behind His Heart And Curled Up And Went To Sleep

I Believe That A Negative Statement Is Poison.i'm Convinced That The Negative Has Power. It Lives. And If You Allow It To Perch In Your House, In Your Mind, In Your Life, It Can Take You Over. So When The Rude Or Cruel Thing Is Said - The Lambasting, The Gay Bashing, The Hate - I Say, "take It All Out Of My House!" Those Negative Words Climb Into The Woodwork And Into The Furniture, And The Next Thing You Know They'll Be On My Skin.

Words Are Things. You Must Be Careful, Careful About Calling People Out Of Their Names, Using Racial Pejoratives And Sexual Pejoratives And All That Ignorance. Don’t Do That. Some Day We’ll Be Able To Measure The Power Of Words. I Think They Are Things. They Get On The Walls. They Get In Your Wallpaper. They Get In Your Rugs, In Your Upholstery, And Your Clothes, And Finally In To You.

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Wendell Phillips

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