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In The Fifties, You Have Your Beauty As A Treat. I Thought That Until I Hit The Sixties.in Your Sixties, Life Decides To Reward You With Certain Kinds Of Profound Appreciation, So That People Name Their Children And Schools And Libraries After You! And You Still Have Your Sexuality And Your Sensuality. If You Want Your Sexuality, You Still Have It.

-Maya Angelou

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In The Fifties, You

Maya Angelou

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In The Fifties, You Have Your Beauty As A Treat. I Thought That Until I Hit The Sixties.in Your Sixties, Life Decides To Reward You With Certain Kinds Of Profound Appreciation, So That People Name Their Children And Schools And Libraries After You! And You Still Have Your Sexuality And Your Sensuality. If You Want Your Sexuality, You Still Have It.

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I'm Convinced Of This: Good Done Anywhere Is Good Done Everywhere. For A Change, Start By Speaking To People Rather Than Walking By Them Like They're Stones That Don't Matter. As Long As You're Breathing, It's Never Too Late To Do Some Good.

I Agreed A Long Time Ago, I Would Not Live At Any Cost. If I Am Moved Or Forced Away From What I Think Is The Right Thing, I Will Not Do It.

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

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

I Would Welcome A Friendship With Lynne Hinton. I Would Welcome An Invitation To Sit Down At Her Table, But Mostly I Would Welcome Her Next Book.

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.

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.

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

The Human Heart Is So Delicate And Sensitive That It Always Needs Some Tangible Encouragement To Prevent It From Faltering In Its Labour.

We Love And Lose In China, We Weep On England's Moors, And Laugh And Moan In Guinea, And Thrive On Spanish Shores. We Seek Success In Finland, Are Born And Die In Maine. In Minor Ways We Differ, In Major We're The Same.

Sometimes All You Need In Love Is To Make Each Other Happy, To Make Each Other Laugh. So Long As You Can Still Do That Ten Years Down The Line Then I Think You're Gold. Never Let The Laughter Slip From Your Relationship.

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.

There Is A World Of Difference Between Facts And The Truth. You Can Have So Many Facts That You Don't Deal With The Truth. You Never Get To The Truth. You Have The Places Where, The People Who, The Times When, The Reasons Why, The Methods How - Blah Blah. And Never Get To The Human Truth. The Human Truth Is As Elusive As The Air. And As Important As The Air.

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

Sometimes Guns Really Matter. Protecting Those Who Need Protection - Children, Women, Minorities In Rough Parts Of Town, Old Folks Living In Places Where Cops Aren't Nearby. Guns Are True Empowerment For The Powerless.

If I Have A Monument In This World, It Is My Son.

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.

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

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

Lift Up Your Eyes Upon This Day Breaking For You. Give Birth Again To The Dream. Women, Children, Men, Take It Into The Palms Of Your Hands. Mold It Into The Shape Of Your Most Private Need. Sculpt It Into The Image Of Your Most Public Self. Lift Up Your Hearts Each New Hour Holds New Chances For A New Beginning.

Love Liberates. It Doesn't Just Hold, That's Ego. Love Liberates.

The Caged Bird Sings With A Fearful Trill, Of Things Unknown, But Longed For Still, And His Tune Is Heard On The Distant Hill, For The Caged Bird Sings Of Freedom.

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.

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

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.

Courage Is The Most Important Of All The Virtues, Because Without Courage You Can't Practice Any Other Virtue Consistently. You Can Practice Any Virtue Erratically, But Nothing Consistently Without Courage.

All People In The World - Who Are Not Hermits Or Mutes - Speak Words. They Speak Different Languages, But They Speak Words. They Say, "how Are You" Or "i'm Not Feeling Well" All Over The World. These Common Words - These Common Elements That We Have Between Us - The Writer Has To Take Some Verbs And Nouns And Pronouns And Adjectives And Adverbs And Arrange Them In A Way That Sound Fresh.

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.

Each Of Us Has A Responsibility For Being Alive: One Responsibility To Creation, Of Which We Are A Part, Another To The Creator A Debt We Repay By Trying To Extend Our Areas Of Comprehension.

If You Were The President Of The United States Or The Queen Of England - You Couldn't Have A Person Who Would Be More Protective Than My Mother Was For Me. Which Meant Really That I Could Dare To Do All Sorts Of Things.

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

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.

Time Itself Is An Individual Gift. It Is Wise To Cherish It Carefully And Give It Away Generously.

The Most Important Thing I Can Tell You About Aging Is This: If You Really Feel That You Want To Have An Off-the-shoulder Blouse And Some Big Beads And Thong Sandals And A Dirndl Skirt And A Magnolia In Your Hair, Do It. Even If You're Wrinkled.

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

Living A Life Is Like Constructing A Building: If You Start Wrong, You'll End Wrong.

Rainbows Are People Whose Lives Are Bright, Shining Examples For Others.

It's Good To Remember That In Crises, Natural Crises, Human Beings Forget For Awhile Their Ignorances, Their Biases, Their Prejudices. For A Little While, Neighbors Help Neighbors And Strangers Help Strangers.

I Would Ask Every Man And Every Woman Who's Had The Blessing Of Having Children, 'would You Deny Your Son Or Your Daughter The Ecstasy Of Finding Someone To Love?' To Love Someone Takes A Lot Of Courage. So How Much More Is One Challenged When The Love Is Of The Same Sex And The Laws Say, 'i Forbid You From Loving This Person'?

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.

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.

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Timidity Makes A Person Modest. It Makes Him Or Her Say, "i'm Not Worthy Of Being Written Up In The Record Of Deeds In Heaven Or On Earth." Timidity Keeps People From Their Good. They Are Afraid To Say, "yes, I Deserve It."

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.

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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.

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Saying Thank You

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Past Present Future

Hate, It Has Caused A Lot Of Problems In The World, But Has Not Solved One Yet.

Effective Action Is Always Unjust.

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If Our Children Are To Approve Of Themselves, They Must See That We Approve Of Ourselves.

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One Must Know Not Just How To Accept A Gift, But With What Grace To Share It.

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It's True. I Can Do Anything And Do It Well Because God Loves Me. It Still Humbles Me.

My Mission In Life Is Not Merely To Survive, But To Thrive; And To Do So With Some Passion, Some Compassion, Some Humor, And Some Style

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.

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.

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

Every Day You Should Reach Out And Touch Someone

When We Decide To Be Happy We Accept The Responsibility To Bring Happiness To Someone Else.

There Are Great Parents Of Small Children - They Keep Their Little Hair In Bows - But Those Parents Are Not Always Good Parents Of Young Adults. As Soon As Their Children Get Up To Some Size, It's "shut Up, Sit Down, You Talk Too Much, Keep Your Distance, I'll Send You To Europe!" My Mom Was A Terrible Parent Of Small Children But A Great Parent Of Young Adults. She'd Talk To Me As If I Had Some Sense.

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

It's Very Hard For Adults To Maintain Respect And Romance So That A Love Affair Can Be Sustained Over Years.

Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

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

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

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Everything Costs And Costs The Earth.

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

If You're Serious, You Really Understand That It's Important That You Laugh As Much As Possible And Admit That You're The Funniest Person You Ever Met. You Have To Laugh. Admit That You're Funny. Otherwise, You Die In Solemnity.

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.

I Did Get Knocked Down Flat In Front Of The Whole World, And I Rose. I Didn't Run Away - I Rose Right Where I'd Been Knocked Down. And Then That's How You Get To Know Yourself. You Say, Hmm, I Can Get Up!

It Is Sad But True That Sometimes We Need The Tragedy To Help Us To See How Human We Are And How We Are More Alike Than We Are Different.

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

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.

Because Of Our Routines We Forget That Life Is An Ongoing Adventure.

Stormy Or Sunny Days, Glorious Or Lonely Nights, I Maintain An Attitude Of Gratitude.

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

Modesty Is A Learned Affectation. It's No Good. Humility Is Great, Because Humility Says, 'there Was Someone Before Me. I'm Following In Somebody's Footsteps.'

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

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’m Grateful For Being Here, For Being Able To Think, For Being Able To See, For Being Able To Taste, For Appreciating Love – For Knowing That It Exists In A World So Rife With Vulgarity, With Brutality And Violence, And Yet Love Exists. I’m Grateful To Know That It Exists.

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

Shakespeare Must Be A Black Girl.

I Think We Have Systematically And Critically Harmed Ourselves And Many Young People By Advising Them Not To Try Things.

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

Be Certain That You Do Not Die Without Having Done Something Wonderful For Humanity.

Inspirational Life

While I Know Myself As A Creation Of God, I Am Also Obligated To Realize And Remember That Everyone Else And Everything Else Are Also God's Creation.

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.

My Work Is To Be Honest. My Work Is To Try To Think Clearly, Then Have The Courage To Make Sure That What I Say Is The Truth.

The Devil Lives In Our Mistakes, The Lord Lives In Our Rights. Who Lives In Our Ignorance, And Who Wins After All?

The Best Comfort Food Will Always Be Greens, Cornbread, And Fried Chicken.

Life Offers Us Tickets To Places Which We Have Not Knowingly Asked For.

My Mission In Life Is Not Merely To Survive, But To Thrive

Will To Survive

You Don't Have To Tell Everything You Know, But Let What You Do Say Be The Truth As You Understand It.

Courage - You Develop Courage By Doing Small Things Like Just As If You Wouldn't Want To Pick Up A 100-pound Weight Without Preparing Yourself.

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.

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.

Modesty Is A Learned Affectation. It's No Good. Humility Is Great, Because Humility Says, 'there Was Someone Before Me. I'm Following In Somebody's Footsteps.'

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

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.

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.

People Are Too Busy Putting Things Under Microscopes And So Forth. Creativity Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts.

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

Everybody In The World Wants The Same Thing...to Be Needed...a Job That He/she Can Do Well...to Love Somebody...everybody...there's No Mystery.

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."

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 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.

In A World So Rife With Vulgarity, With Brutality And Violence, Love Exists. I’m Grateful To Know That It Exists.

Each Of Us Has A Responsibility For Being Alive: One Responsibility To Creation, Of Which We Are A Part, Another To The Creator A Debt We Repay By Trying To Extend Our Areas Of Comprehension.

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.

Love Builds Up The Broken Wall And Straightens The Crooked Path. Love Keeps The Stars In The Firmament And Imposes Rhythm On The Ocean Tides. Each Of Us Is Created Of It And I Suspect Each Of Us Was Created For It.

All Great Acheivements Require Time.

Seek Patience And Passion In Equal Amounts. Patience Alone Will Not Build The Temple. Passion Alone Will Destroy Its Walls.

We Need Much Less Than We Think We Need.

If You Have Only One Smile In You Give It To The People You Love.

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.

Laugh...it's The Sweetest Thing One Can Do For Oneself And One's Fellow Human Beings.

Inscribed On The Temple Of Apollo

Self Confidence

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

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

Abolition Of Slavery

The Root Cause Of All The Problems We Have In The World Today Is Ignorance Of Course. But Most, Polarization.

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

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.

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.

No Not Me Go Find Someone Else To Bring Down

I Love To See A Young Girl Go Out And Grab The World By The Lapels.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

Poetry Helps My Soul Escape Its Encasement.

Growing Up At My Grandmother's Table, She Always Had Rice. She Might Do Something As Exotic As Potatoes Or Spaghetti, But There Was Still Always Rice, Just In Case You Needed A Little Rice Fix.

I Think We All Have Empathy. We May Not Have Enough Courage To Display It.

Let The Brain Go To Work, Let It Meet The Heart And You Will Be Able To Forgive.

We Are The Victims Of The World's Most Comprehensive Robbery. Life Demands A Balance. It's All Right If We Do A Little Robbing Now.

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.

Poetry And Music Are The Best At The Highest Level Of The Human Mind. Out Of Poetry, Out Of Their Need For Poetry, Human Beings Have Developed The Idea Of God. And So When We Sing, When We Dance, When We Speak Poetry We Are Speaking Out Of God's Mouth, Each Other Out Of The Music From God's Heart.

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

Joy Is A Freedom. It Helps A Person To Find His/her Own Liberation. The Person Who Is Joyous Takes Responsibility For The Time He/she Takes Up And The Space That He/she Occupies. You Share It! Some Of You Have It ... You Share It! That Is What Joy Is! When You Continue To Give It Away You Will Still Have So Much More Of It.

I Think A Nap Or A Rest Overnight Is Great. But Who Needs Three Days Of Rest? Please! The Second Day, You Might Die.

Would You Deny Your Son Or Your Daughter The Ecstasy Of Finding Someone To Love?

Finding Someone

It Is Time For Parents To Teach Young People Early On That In Diversity There Is Beauty And There Is Strength.

Be Present In All Things And Thankful For All Things.

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.

Most Plain Girls Are Virtuous Because Of The Scarcity Of Opportunity To Be Otherwise.

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'm Here, And I Do My Best To Be Completely Centered At The Place I'm At, Then I Go Forward To The Next Place.

When Younger Writers And Poets, Musicians And Painters Are Weakened By A Stemming Of Funds, They Come To Me Saddened, Not As Full Of Dreams And Excitement And Ideas. I Am Then Weakened And Diminished, And Made Less Rich.

Moderation In All Things. And Even Moderation In Moderation. Don't Get Too Much Moderation, You Know?

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

Preach It, I Say Preach It.

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

Does My Sexiness Upset You? Does It Come As A Surprise That I Dance Like I've Got Diamonds At The Meeting Of My Thighs?

You May Write Me Down In History With Your Bitter, Twisted Lies. You May Trod Me In The Very Dirt, But Still Like Dust, I'll Rise.

A Leader Sees Greatness In Other People. He Nor She Can Be Much Of A Leader If All She Sees Is Herself.

Remember, People Will Judge You By Your Actions Not Your Intentions. You May Have A Heart Of Gold But So Does A Hard-boiled Egg.

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

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. Love Arrives And In Its Train Come Ecstasies Old Memories Of Pleasure Ancient Histories Of Pain. Yet If We Are Bold, Love Strikes Away The Chains Of Fear From Our Souls. We Are Weaned From Our Timidity In The Flush Of Love's Light We Dare Be Brave And Suddenly We See That Love Costs All We Are And Will Ever Be. Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

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

There Is Nothing So Pitiful As A Young Cynic Because He Has Gone From Knowing Nothing To Believing Nothing.

Knowing Nothing

I've Learned That Making A 'living' Is Not The Same Thing As 'making A Life'.

The Quality Of Strength Lined With Tenderness Is An Unbeatable Combination, As Are Intelligence And Necessity When Unblunted By Formal Education.

The Subject Of The Poem Usually Dictates The Rhythm Or The Rhyme And Its Form. Sometimes, When You Finish The Poem And You Think The Poem Is Finished, The Poem Says, "you're Not Finished With Me Yet," And You Have To Go Back And Revise, And You May Have Another Poem Altogether. It Has Its Own Life To Live.

Without Courage You Cannot Practice Any Of The Other Virtues.

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."

...we May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. That Sounds Goody Two-shoes, I Know, But I Believe That A Diamond Is The Result Of Extreme Pressure And Time. Less Time Is Crystal. Less Than That Is Coal. Less Than That Is Fossilized Leaves. Less Than That It's Just Plain Dirt. In All My Work, In The Movies I Write, The Lyrics The Poetry, The Prose, The Essays, I Am Saying That We May Encounter Many Defeats - Maybe It's Imperative That We Encounter The Defeats - But We Are Much Stronger Than We Appear To Be And Maybe Much Better Than We Allow Ourselves To Be.

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne Once Said That Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing.

We May Act Sophisticated And Worldly But I Believe We Feel Safest When We Go Inside Ourselves And Find Home, A Place Where We Belong And Maybe The Only Place We Really Do.

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

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

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.

Hate, It Has Caused A Lot Of Problems In The World, But Has Not Solved One Yet.

It's A Wonderful Thing To Know That There Is Something To Know There Is Something Greater Than I Am, And That Is God Itself.

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

I Like To Know What's Happening.

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

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.

People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

I Was Grateful To See President Obama's Victory Speech. I Was Over The Moon To See The Audience. There Were About 60 Percent White Voters The Other 40 Percent Were African Americans, Asian, Spanish Speaking Etc. I Wept At That Spectacle, It Told Me That The Pundits That Continue In Our Country To Try To Polarize Us, To Keep Us Apart, Are Not Succeeding. Americans Are Waking Up Not Only To The Truth, But The Truth In Each Other. Hallelujah!

One Of The Wonderful Things About Oprah: She Teaches You To Keep On Stepping.

Wonderful Things

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

Freedom Is Never Free.

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.

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

In A Magazine, One Can Get - From Cover To Cover - 15 To 20 Different Ideas About Life And How To Live It.

Different Ideas

Would You Deny Your Son Or Your Daughter The Ecstasy Of Finding Someone To Love?

Finding Someone

People Feel Guilty. And Guilt Is Stymieing. Guilt Immobilizes. Guilt Closes The Air Ducts And The Veins, And Makes People Ignorant.

I Want All My Senses Engaged. Let Me Absorb The World's Variety And Uniqueness.

I Try To See Every Day As A Celebration.

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John Polkinghorne

Edward R. Murrow

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