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I Find In My Poetry And Prose The Rhythms And Imagery Of The Best - I Mean, When I'm At My Best - Of The Good Southern Black Preachers. The Lyricism Of The Spirituals And The Directness Of Gospel Songs And The Mystery Of Blues Are In My Music Or In My Poetry And Prose, Or I Missed Everything.

-Maya Angelou

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I Find In My

Maya Angelou

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I Find In My Poetry And Prose The Rhythms And Imagery Of The Best - I Mean, When I'm At My Best - Of The Good Southern Black Preachers. The Lyricism Of The Spirituals And The Directness Of Gospel Songs And The Mystery Of Blues Are In My Music Or In My Poetry And Prose, Or I Missed Everything.

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Each Person Deserves A Day Away In Which No Problems Are Confronted, No Solutions Searched For.

In All My Work, I Try To Say - 'you May Be Given A Load Of Sour Lemons, Why Not Try To Make A Dozen Lemon Meringue Pies?'

When I Passed Forty I Dropped Pretense, 'cause Men Like Women Who Got Some Sense.

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.

The Idea Is To Write It So That People Hear It And It Slides Through The Brain And Goes Straight To The Heart.

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Effective Action Is Always Unjust.

Each Of Us, Famous Or Infamous, Is A Role Model For Somebody, And If We Aren't, We Should Behave As Though We Are -- Cheerful, Kind, Loving, Courteous. Because You Can Be Sure Someone Is Watching And Taking Deliberate And Diligent Notes.

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.

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

I Believe What I Have To Say Is Important, And I Believe The People Coming To Hear Me Are Important, And So The Occasion Of Itself Alone Has An Importance, Which Forces Me To Stare Down My Nerves.

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.

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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.

Alone, All Alone Nobody, But Nobody Can Make It Out Here Alone.

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

We Are Not Just Flesh And Blood. And Our Hungers Are Not Going To Be Set Aside As Just Flesh And Blood.

Flesh And Blood

It's Hard Because People Think They Have Something To Lose And The Truth Is They Have Everything To Gain In Trying To Love Somebody.

We Allow Our Ignorance To Prevail Upon Us And Make Us Think We Can Survive Alone, Alone In Patches, Alone In Groups, Alone In Races, Even Alone In Genders.

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.

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

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.

It Is The Worst Thing You Can Do, Women, Is Whine, .. I Mean The Worst. Don't Complain, Protest.

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I've Learned That Whenever I Decide Something With An Open Heart, I Usually Make The Right Decision. I've Learned That Even When I Have Pains, I Don't Have To Be One. 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. I've Learned That I Still Have A Lot To Learn.

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The Holy Spirit Upon My Left Leads My Feet Without Ceasing Into The Camp Of The Righteous And Into The Tents Of The Free.

We Need To Not Be In Denial About What We've Done, What We've Come Through. It Will Help Us If We All Do That.

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You Dwell In Whitened Castles With Deep And Poisoned Moats And Cannot Hear The Curses Which Fill Your Children's Throats.

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Those Who Have Something To Say Accept The Fact That That's Lonely. One Already Knows That There Will Be Adversaries.

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.

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I Am Not Competing With Anyone Other Than Myself. I Want To Be Excellent At Whatever I Do.

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When Asked How She Knows When Her Writing Is Where She Wants It To Be: "i Know When It's The Best I Can Do. It May Not Be The Best There Is. Another Writer May Do It Much Better. But I Know When It's The Best I Can Do. I Know That One Of The Great Arts That The Writer Develops Is The Art Of Saying, 'no. No, I'm Finished. Bye.' And Leaving It Alone. I Will Not Write It Into The Ground. I Will Not Write The Life Out Of It. I Won't Do That."

I Married A Man Once And We Had Been Married Over A Year Before I Found He Preferred Potatoes. I Said, "i Didn't Know You Loved Potatoes." And He Said That Until He Was About 13, He Thought Rice Was Potato Seeds.

A Great Soul Serves Everyone All The Time. A Great Soul Never Dies. It Brings Us Together Again And Again.

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Live Life As If It Were Created Just For You.

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We Can See, From California To New York, From Maine To Florida, Seattle To New Mexico - Everywhere There Are Women's Groups. Everywhere There Are Women Who Have Gotten Together To Examine Global Warming, And Women Who Have Gotten Together To Prepare Each Other For Single Parenting - There Are Women Who Have Come Together To Be Supportive To Those Whose Mates Are In Prison, Male Or Female, Partners Are In Prison. All Sorts Of Gatherings Of Women. I Mean, I'm Just Celebrating My 80th Year On This Planet, And I Look Back 50 Years Ago And There Was Nothing Like That.

Love Liberates. Love - Not Sentimentality, Not Mush - But True Love Gives You Enough Courage That You Can Say To Somebody, "don't Do That, Baby." And The Person Will Know You're Not Preaching But Teaching.

I Am Serious, So I Laugh A Lot. You Need To Laugh. You Don't Laugh Enough. I Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Laugh.

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Inspirational Life

My Hope Is That We Develop Enough Courage To Develop Courage. To Try To Have, Try To Learn To Treat Each Other Fairly, With Generosity And Kindness.

All My Work, My Life, Everything I Do Is About Survival, Not Just Bare, Awful, Plodding Survival, But Survival With Grace And Faith. While One May Encounter Many Defeats, One Must Not Be Defeated.

When We Give Cheerfully And Accept Gratefully, Everyone Is Blessed.

In So Many Ways, Segregation Shaped Me, And Education Liberated Me.

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.'

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.

When I Look Back, I Am So Impressed Again With The Life-giving Power Of Literature. If I Were A Young Person Today, Trying To Gain A Sense Of Myself In The World, I Would Do That Again By Reading, Just As I Did When I Was Young.

I Think When We Don't Know What To Do It's Wise To Do Nothing. Sit Down Quietly; Quiet Our Hearts And Minds And Breathe Deeply.

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.

The Needs Of A Society Determine Its Ethics.

When I'm Writing, I Write. And Then It's As If The Muse Is Convinced That I'm Serious And Says, 'okay. Okay. I'll Come.'

People Trying To Separate People Rather Than Bring Us Together... Please. You Don't Just See It In America. It's All Over The World.

Nothing Hurts More Than Realizing They Meant Everything To You, But You Meant Nothing To Them.

What You're Supposed To Do When You Don't Like A Thing Is Change It. If You Can't Change It, Change The Way You Think About It. Don't Complain.

You Can't Forgive Without Loving. And I Don't Mean Sentimentality. I Don't Mean Mush. I Mean Having Enough Courage To Stand Up And Say, 'i Forgive. I'm Finished With It.'

Women Should Be Tough, Tender, Laugh As Much As Possible, And Live Long Lives.

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

To Those Who Have Given Up On Love: I Say, "trust Life A Little Bit.

Everything In The Universe Has A Rhythm, Everything Dances.

We Agreed That Great Men And Women Should Be Forced To Live As Long As Possible. The Reverence They Enjoyed Was A Life Sentence, Which They Could Neither Revoke Nor Modify.

Achievement Brings Its Own Anticlimax.

The Charitable Say In Effect, 'i Seem To Have More Than I Need And You Seem To Have Less Than You Need. I Would Like To Share My Excess With You.' Fine, If My Excess Is Tangible, Money Or Goods, And Fine If Not, For I Learned That To Be Charitable With Gestures And Words Can Bring Enormous Joy And Repair Injured Feelings.

If You Have Only One Smile In You, Give It To The People You Love. Don't Be Surly At Home, Then Go Out In The Street And Start Grinning 'good Morning' At Total Strangers.

The Honorary Duty Of A Human Being Is To Love.

I'm A Descendant Of Someone Bought And Sold, And Brought In 1619 In What Was To Become The United States.

Life Is Pure Adventure, And The Sooner We Realize That, The Quicker We Will Be Able To Treat Life As Art.

All Great Acheivements Require Time.

I'm A Positive Thinker And Actor. I Look At A Glass; A Negative Person Sees The Glass And Says: Too Bad It's Half Empty... I Look At The Same Glass And Say: Hallelujah!! It's Half Full!!!

Courage, I Don't Think Anybody Is Born With Courage. I Think You May Be Born With A Flair To Braggadocio, You Know. That's Not Courage.

If One Is Lucky, A Solitary Fantasy Can Totally Transform One Million Realities.

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.

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.

I Thought I'm Going To Die. So Why Can't I Do Everything? And What Is This Idea That I Worked All Day Yesterday, So I'm Tired Today? I've Never Believed That.i Thought, "just Suppose I Could Choreograph A Ballet." And I Did It. Suppose I Could Teach Dance At The Theater In Cleveland. And I Did It. Suppose I Could Sing For A Living - That I Could Stop These Two Jobs As A Waitress And A Salesperson.

The Nice Thing About Hope Is That You Can Give It To Someone Else, Someone Who Needs It Even More Than You Do, And You Will Find You Have Not Given Yours Away At All.

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

The Truth Is You Never Can Leave Home. You Take It With You Everywhere You Go. It's Under Your Skin. It Moves The Tongue Or Slows It, Colors The Thinking, Impedes Upon The Logic.

I Write Because I Am A Black Woman, Listening Attentively To Her People.

The Charitable Say In Effect, 'i Seem To Have More Than I Need And You Seem To Have Less Than You Need. I Would Like To Share My Excess With You.' Fine, If My Excess Is Tangible, Money Or Goods, And Fine If Not, For I Learned That To Be Charitable With Gestures And Words Can Bring Enormous Joy And Repair Injured Feelings.

If You Don't Like Something, Change It. If You Can't Change It, Change Your Attitude.

We May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. It May Even Be Necessary To Encounter The Defeat, So That We Can Know Who We Are.

To Be Human Is To Be Challenged To Be More Divine. Not Even To Try To Meet Such A Challenge Is The Biggest Defeat Imaginable.

The Holy Spirit Upon My Left Leads My Feet Without Ceasing Into The Camp Of The Righteous And Into The Tents Of The Free.

Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.

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.

We Need Joy As We Need Air. We Need Love As We Need Water. We Need Each Other As We Need The Earth We Share.

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.

Alone, All Alone Nobody, But Nobody Can Make It Out Here Alone.

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

Whining Lets The Brute Know There's A Victim For Him In The Neighborhood!

My Doctor Told Me That I Really Should Lose Some Weight. "you're Mildly Obese," He Said. And I Thought, "well, Who Couldn't Afford To Lose 20 Or 30 Pounds?" He Said, "well, A Person In Your Category." I Said, "what Is That Category, Doctor?" He Said, "well, You're What I Call Upwardly Middle Aged." And I Said, "i Forgive You For Everything."

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

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.

There Is No Place Where God Is Not.

If You Have A Person Enslaved, The First Thing You Must Do Is To Convince Yourself That The Person Is Subhuman. And Won't Mind The Enslavement. The Second Thing You Must Do Is Convince Your Allies That The Person Is Subhuman So That You Have Some Support. But The Third And The Unkindest Cut Of All Is To Convince That Person That He, She, Is Not Quite A First Class Citizen.

I Am Capable Of What Every Other Human Is Capable Of. This Is One Of The Great Lessons Of War And Life.

Everybody Born Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory.

Just Like Moons And Suns, With Certainty Of Tides, Just Like Hopes Springing High, Still I'll Rise.

When I Passed Forty I Dropped Pretense, 'cause Men Like Women Who Got Some Sense.

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

That's What You Want To Do? Then Nothing Beats A Trial But A Failure. Give It Everything You've Got. I've Told You Many Times, 'cant Do Is Like Dont Care.' Neither Of Them Have A Home.

I Read The Bible To Myself; I'll Take Any Translation, Any Edition, And Read It Aloud, Just To Hear The Language, Hear The Rhythm, And Remind Myself How Beautiful English Is.

When Asked How She Knows When Her Writing Is Where She Wants It To Be: "i Know When It's The Best I Can Do. It May Not Be The Best There Is. Another Writer May Do It Much Better. But I Know When It's The Best I Can Do. I Know That One Of The Great Arts That The Writer Develops Is The Art Of Saying, 'no. No, I'm Finished. Bye.' And Leaving It Alone. I Will Not Write It Into The Ground. I Will Not Write The Life Out Of It. I Won't Do That."

Determine To Live Life With Flair And Laughter.

No One Can Take The Place Of A Friend, No One.

If I Am Not Good To Myself, How Can I Expect Anyone Else To Be Good To Me?

A Joyful Spirit Is Evidence Of A Grateful Heart.

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.

If You Are Going Down A Road And Don't Like What's In Front Of You, And Look Behind You And Don't Like What You See, Get Off The Road. Create A New Path!

Positive Attitude

I Believe That One Can Never Leave Home. I Believe That One Carries The Shadows, The Dreams, The Fears And The Dragons Of Home Under One's Skin, At The Extreme Corners Of One's Eyes And Possibly In The Gristle Of The Earlobe.

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.

Bringing The Gifts That My Ancestors Gave, I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave. I Rise. I Rise. I Rise.

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.

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

Whining Is Just Unbecoming.

I Have Forgiven Myself; I'll Make A Change. Once That Forgiveness Has Taken Place You Can Console Yourself With The Knowledge That A Diamond Is The Result Of Extreme Pressure. Less Pressure Is Crystal, Less Than That Is Coal, Less Than That Is Fossilized Leaves Or Plain Dirt. Pressure Can Change You Into Something Quite Precious, Quite Wonderful, Quote Beautiful And Extremely Hard.

I Made The Decision To Quit Show Business. Give Up The Skintight Dresses And Manicured Smiles. The False Concern Over Sentimental Lyrics. I Would Never Again Work To Make People Smile Inanely And Would Take On The Responsibility Of Making Them Think.

Love Life. Engage In It. Give It All You've Got. Love It With A Passion Because Life Truly Does Give Back, Many Times Over, What You Put Into It.

I Had Read A Tale Of Two Cities And Found It Up To My Standards As A Romantic Novel. She Opened The First Page And I Heard Poetry For The First Time In My Life...her Voice Slid In And Curved Down Trough And Over The Words. She Was Nearly Singing.

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

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

Everybody Born Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory.

Growing Up, My Grandmother Did Not Want Worldly Music In The House. Then When I Went Out To California, I Started Listening To Spanish Music, Mostly Mexican Music. But Were I In Egypt, I Would Listen To The Music Of The People, Or If I Was In Italy, I'd Listen To Italian Music.

I Make Writing As Much A Part Of My Life As I Do Eating Or Listening To Music.

I Liked To Write From The Time I Was About 12 Or 13. I Loved To Read. And Since I Only Spoke To My Brother, I Would Write Down My Thoughts. And I Think I Wrote Some Of The Worst Poetry West Of The Rockies. But By The Time I Was In My 20s, I Found Myself Writing Little Essays And More Poetry - Writing At Writing.

A Person Is The Product Of Their Dreams. So Make Sure To Dream Great Dreams. And Then Try To Live Your Dream.

I Always Knew From That Moment, From The Time I Found Myself At Home In That Little Segregated Library In The South, All The Way Up Until I Walked Up The Steps Of The New York City Library, I Always Felt, In Any Town, If I Can Get To A Library, I'll Be Okay. It Really Helped Me As A Child, And That Never Left Me. So I Have A Special Place For Every Library, In My Heart Of Hearts.

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."

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.

When You Learn, Teach, When You Get, Give.

We Are Loved By Love Itself. There Is Nothing Good That We Can't Do.

We May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. It May Even Be Necessary To Encounter The Defeat, So That We Can Know Who We Are.

Out Of The Huts Of History's Shame I Rise Up From A Past That's Rooted In Pain I Rise I'm A Black Ocean, Leaping And Wide, Welling And Swelling I Bear In The Tide. Leaving Behind Nights Of Terror And Fear I Rise Into A Daybreak That's Wondrously Clear I Rise Bringing The Gifts That My Ancestors Gave, I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave. I Rise I Rise I Rise.

If You Will Have A Person Enslaved, The First Thing You Must Do Is Convince Yourself That The Person Is Subhuman. The Second Thing You Have To Do Is Convince Your Allies So You'll Have Some Help, And The Third And Probably Unkindest Cut Of All Is To Convince That Person That He Or She Is Subhuman And Deserves It.

You Might Encounter Defeats But You Must Never Be Defeated... Love A Lot. Laugh A Lot At The Silliest Things And Be Very Serious... Love Life.

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

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Anna Julia Cooper

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