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If We Are Honest And Fair, Then We Are Known By That. If We Are Not, Alas, We Are Known By That As Well. What We Want To Do Is Do Right, But You Have To Say It, You Have To Show It, And Not Stop.

-Maya Angelou

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If We Are Honest

Maya Angelou

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If We Are Honest And Fair, Then We Are Known By That. If We Are Not, Alas, We Are Known By That As Well. What We Want To Do Is Do Right, But You Have To Say It, You Have To Show It, And Not Stop.

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I Am Grateful To Have Been Loved And To Be Loved Now And To Be Able To Love, Because That Liberates. Love Liberates. It Doesn't Just Hold - That's Ego. Love Liberates. It Doesn't Bind. Love Says, 'i Love You. I Love You If You're In China. I Love You If You're Across Town. I Love You If You're In Harlem. I Love You. I Would Like To Be Near You. I'd Like To Have Your Arms Around Me. I'd Like To Hear Your Voice In My Ear. But That's Not Possible Now, So I Love You. Go.'

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Home Is A Refuge Not Only From The World, But A Refuge From My Worries, My Troubles, My Concerns. I Like Beautiful Things Around Me. I Like To Be Beautiful Because It Delights My Eyes And My Soul Is Lifted Up.

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

It Is Only Out Of Ignorance That People Are Cruel, Because They Really Don't Think It Will Come Back.

When You Know You Are Of Worth, You Don't Have To Raise Your Voice, You Don't Have To Become Rude, You Don't Have To Become Vulgar; You Just Are. And You Are Like The Sky Is, As The Air Is, The Same Way Water Is Wet. It Doesn't Have To Protest.

You Rose Into My Life Like A Promised Sunrise, Brightening My Days With The Light In Your Eyes. I've Never Been So Strong. Now I'm Where I Belong.

Let Choice Whisper In Your Ear And Love Murmur In Your Heart. Be Ready. Here Comes Life.

Never Whine. Whining Lets A Brute Know That A Victim Is In The Neighborhood.

At 50, I Began To Know Who I Was. It Was Like Waking Up To Myself.

I Do Not Trust People Who Don't Love Themselves And Yet Tell Me, 'i Love You.' There Is An African Saying Which Is: Be Careful When A Naked Person Offers You A Shirt.

We Will Sometimes Have Defeats In Life But You Can Have Defeats Without Being Defeated, You Could Fail Without Being A Failure. When You See Failure And Defeats As Merely Part Of The Process To Get To When.

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

I Long, As Does Every Human Being, To Be At Home Wherever I Find Myself.

Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now.

Inspirational Life

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.

I Don't Know How Much Longer I'll Be Around. I'll Probably Be Writing When The Lord Says, 'maya, Maya Angelou, It's Time.'

Out Of The Huts Of History's Shame I Rise.

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.

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.

Ask For What You Want And Be Prepared To Get It!

Naturally, If You Love Somebody, You Do Want To See Their Face Every Now And Again, But That's Not A Condition Of Your Love. People Often Get Possession Mixed Up With Love, And They Say, "if You Really Loved Me, You Would Call Me." How - When Life Is Going On? I Think Of You All The Time, And The Thought Of You Always Lifts My Spirits. But I'm Not Right At The Phone!

I Know That You That You May Encounter Many Defeats, But You Must Not Be Defeated. If You Accept That You Have Been Defeated, You Give Power To The Force That Is Trying To Defeat You.

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."

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Jealousy In Romance Is Like Salt In Food. A Little Can Enhance The Savor, But Too Much Can Spoil The Pleasure And, Under Certain Circumstances, Can Be Life-threatening.

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.

I've Tried To Be Totally Present, So That When I'm Finished With A Piece Of Work, I'm Finished. ... The Work, Once Completed, Does Not Need Me. The Work I'm Working On Needs My Total Concentration. The One That's Finished Doesn't Belong To Me Anymore. It Belongs To Itself.

You Think You May Not Be Heard. Speak Anyway.

Beneath The Skin, Beyond The Differing Features And Into The True Heart Of Being, Fundamentally, We Are More Alike, My Friend, Than We Are Unalike.

Inscribed On The Temple Of Apollo

Self Confidence

If I Wanted To Write, I Had To Be Willing To Develop A Kind Of Concentration Found Mostly In People Awaiting Execution. I Had To Learn Technique And Surrender My Ignorance.

We Need Much Less Than We Think We Need.

We Write For The Same Reason That We Walk, Talk, Climb Mountains Or Swim The Oceans - Because We Can. We Have Some Impulse Within Us That Makes Us Want To Explain Ourselves To Other Human Beings.

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.'

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.

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.

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.

I Believe That The Most Important Single Thing, Beyond Discipline And Creativity Is Daring To Dare.

I Never Had That Feeling That I Had To Carry The Weight Of Somebody's Ignorance Around With Me. And That Was True For Racists Who Wanted To Use The 'n' Word When Talking About Me Or About My People, Or The Stupidity Of People Who Really Wanted To Belittle Other Folks Because They Weren't Pretty Or They Weren't Rich Or They Weren't Clever.

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

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 Writer Has To Take The Most Used, Most Familiar Objects - Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs - Ball Them Together And Make Them Bounce, Turn Them A Certain Way And Make People Get Into A Romantic Mood; And Another Way, Into A Bellicose Mood. I'm Most Happy To Be A Writer.

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

There Is An Amazing Something In The American Psyche Which Speaks About Courage, And It Says, 'yes I Can,' ... Yes, We Will Overcome It All Because We Have The Spirit To Do So.

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.

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

Life Loves The Liver Of It.

Nature Has No Mercy At All. Nature Says, "i'm Going To Snow. If You Have On A Bikini And No Snowshoes, That's Tough. I Am Going To Snow Anyway."

I Know That I'm Not The Easiest Person To Live With. The Challenge I Put On Myself Is So Great That The Person I Live With Feels Himself Challenged. I Bring A Lot To Bear, And I Don't Know How Not To.

Number Of Things Happen After I Was 50. One, You Are Hopefully Secure In What You Want To Do - Which Means That You Don't Spend A Lot Of Time Chewing On Your Knuckles About Your Reason For Being Here.also, You're At Your Most Beautiful. No Woman Is Ever More Beautiful Than She Is At 50.

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.

The Truth Is Very Important. No Matter How Negative It Is, It Is Imperative That You Learn The Truth, Not Necessarily The Facts. I Mean, That, That Can Come, But Facts Can Stand In Front Of The Truth And Almost Obscure The Truth. It Is Imperative That Students Learn The Truth Of Our History.

I'm Very Blessed That I Have A Healthy Temper. I Can Become Quite Angry And Burning In Anger, But I Have Never Been Bitter. Bitterness Is A Corrosive, Terrible Acid. It Just Eats You And Makes You Sick.

Life Loves To Be Taken By The Lapel And Told: 'i'm With You Kid. Let's Go.'

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