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Laugh As Often As Possible. You Must. Because The World Will Offer You Every Reason To Weep. So As Often As Possible, You Laugh. That, I Think, Is Part Of The Great Love.

-Maya Angelou

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Laugh As Often As

Maya Angelou

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Laugh As Often As Possible. You Must. Because The World Will Offer You Every Reason To Weep. So As Often As Possible, You Laugh. That, I Think, Is Part Of The Great Love.

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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 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.

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.

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Positive Attitude

I Have A Feeling That I Make A Very Good Friend, And I'm A Good Mother, And A Good Sister, And A Good Citizen. I Am Involved In Life Itself - All Of It. And I Have A Lot Of Energy And A Lot Of Nerve.

I Thank God That I've Lived Long Enough To See What I Have Seen, And I Pray That People Will Continue To Do Better. We Are Doing Better, It May Not Seem So, But There Was A Time When People Were Lynched In The Middle Of The Street And It Was Not Against The Law. We Are Doing Better, But We Have So Much More To Do.

Sunday, If I'm Lucky, I'll Go To Church Or Listen To Some Good Spiritual Advice On The Television Or On The Radio. I Take Three Or Four Baths To Try To Cleanse Myself, So I'm Fresh For Monday.

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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.

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When I Want To Think About What Would Be The Right Thing To Do, The Fair Thing To Do, The Wise Thing To Do, I Can Just Think Of My Grandmother. I Can Always Hear Her Say, "now Sister, You Know What's Right. Just Do Right!"

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Whining Is Not Only Graceless, But It Can Be Dangerous. It Can Alert A Brute That A Victim Is In The Neighborhood.

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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.

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I Believe That Every Person Is Born With Talent.

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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.

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My Great Blessing Is My Son, But I Have Daughters. I Have White Ones And Black Ones And Fat Ones And Thin Ones And Pretty Ones And Plain. I Have Gay Ones And Straight. I Have Daughters. I Have Asian Ones, I Have Jewish Ones, I Have Muslim Ones.

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We Have It In Us To Be Splendid.

I Try To See Every Day As A Celebration.

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

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Jealousy Is Conceived Only In Insecurity And Must Be Nourished In Fear.

I Don't Think There's Such A Thing As Autobiographical Fiction. If I Say It Happened, It Happened, Even If Only In My Mind.

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I Will Write On The Pages Of History What I Want Them To Say. I Will Be Myself. I Will Speak My Own Name.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

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Poetry Puts Starch In Your Backbone So You Can Stand, So You Can Compose Your Life.

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We Must Be Warriors In The Struggle Against Ignorance

Nothing Can Dim The Light Which Shines From Within.

Writing And Cookery Are Just Two Different Means Of Communication.

I Certainly Do Not Adore The Writer's Discipline. I Have Lost Lovers, Endangered Friendships, And Blundered Into Eccentricity, Impelled By A Concentration Which Usually Is To Be Found Only In The Minds Of People About To Be Executed In The Next Half Hour.

Let Me Tell So Much Truth. I Want To Tell The Truth In My Work. The Truth Will Lead Me To All.

Telling The Truth

I Never Have Written Every Day. When I'm Writing A Book, I Write Monday Through Friday. I Always Try To Take Saturday And Pretend To Have Some Sanity.

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.

Stand Up Straight And Realize Who You Are, That You Tower Over Your Circumstances. You Are A Child Of God. Stand Up Straight.

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

Abolition Of Slavery

If You Have, Give. If You Learn, Teach.

What I Think It Really Means Is: I'm A Teacher. I Am A Teacher. I Teach All The Time, As You Do And As All Of You Do-whether We Know It Or Not, Whether We Take Responsibility For It Or Not. I Hold Nothing Back Because I Want To See That Light Go Off. I Like To See The Children Say, 'i Never Thought Of That Before.' And I Think, 'i've Got Them!'

There Is A Very Fine Line Between Loving Life And Being Greedy For It.

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

Life Is A Gift, And I Try To Respond With Grace And Courtesy.

There's Something Beautiful About The Fact That Obama Was Not Just Elected, But Elected Decisively Across Racial, And Socio-economic And Cultural Groups And That We All Celebrated In His Win.

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.

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.

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

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.

I Like To Know What's Happening.

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

Will To Survive

Putting Down On Paper What You Have To Say Is An Important Part Of Writing, But The Words And Ideas Have To Be Shaped And Cleaned, Cleaned As Severely As A Dog Cleans A Bone, Cleaned Until There's Not A Shred Of Anything Superfluous.

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

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.

Have Enough Courage To Love.

Courage To Love

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.

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

All Great Achievements Require Time.

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

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.

Everybody Is Worth Everything.

I Like Good Food. People Want A Certain Taste, But When They're Offered Something Else, They'll Overeat. If They Really Are Looking For Chicken And Someone Gives Them Pork Chops, They'll Say, "i Will Have Another." And That's Because Their Satisfaction Is Not Reached. So I Thought I Would Make Great Food, But Eat Less Of It. I Tried It And I've Taken Off Over 40 Pounds.

Whether You Are Happy Or Whether You Are Sad, It Is Wise To Remember You Are Really In Process.

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

If I'm Going To A New Country, I Try To Learn Something About The Language And The Culture, So I Don't Just Go Bumbling Over Things.

There Is A Kind Of Strength That Is Almost Frightening In Black Women. It's As If A Steel Rod Runs Right Through The Head Down To The Feet.

We Need Language To Tell Us Who We Are, How We Feel, What We're Capable Of- To Explain The Pains And Glory Of Our Existence.

Listen Carefully To What Country People Call Mother Wit. In Those Homely Sayings Are Couched The Collective Wisdom Of Generations.

If We Live Long Enough, We May Even Get Over War. I Imagine A Time When Somebody Will Mention The Word War And Everyone In The Room Will Start To Laugh. And What Do You Mean War?

When Someone Shows You Who They Are, Believe Them The First Time. People Know Themselves Much Better Than You Do. That's Why It's Important To Stop Expecting Them To Be Something Other Than Who They Are

Each Of Us Needs To Withdraw From The Cares Which Will Not Withdraw From Us. We Need Hours Of Aimless Wandering Or Spates Of Time Sitting On Park Benches, Observing The Mysterious World Of Ants And The Canopy Of Treetops.

Everything In The Universe Has A Rhythm, Everything Dances.

Never Make Someone A Priority When All You Are To Them Is An Option.

We Cannot Change The Past, But We Can Change Our Attitude Toward It. Uproot Guilt And Plant Forgiveness. Tear Out Arrogance And Seed Humility. Exchange Love For Hate - Thereby, Making The Present Comfortable And The Future Promising.

All Great Acheivements Require Time.

Everybody Is Worth Everything.

Take A Month And Show Some Kindness For The Folks Who Thought That Blindness Was An Illness That Affected Eyes Alone.

All Of My History As An African-american Woman, As A Jewish Woman, As A Muslim Woman. I'm Bringing Everything I Ever Knew, And All The Stories I've Read - Everything Good, Strong, Kind And Powerful. I Bring It All With Me Into Every Situation, And I Will Not Allow My Life To Be Minimized By Anybody's Racism Or Sexism Or Ageism.

I Am Grateful To Be A Woman. I Must Have Done Something Great In Another Life.

Strong Women- Precious Jewels All- Their Humanness Is Evident In Their Accessibility. We Are Able To Enter Into The Spirit Of These Women And Rejoice In Their Warmth And Courage.

I Would Be Stupid Not To Be On My Own Side. But I'm A Human Being, Too. And I'm On The Side Of Human Beings, Rather Than On The Side Of Crocodiles.

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

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.

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

I Would Be Stupid Not To Be On My Own Side. But I'm A Human Being, Too. And I'm On The Side Of Human Beings, Rather Than On The Side Of Crocodiles.

When Someone Shows You Who They Are, Believe Them The First Time. People Know Themselves Much Better Than You Do. That's Why It's Important To Stop Expecting Them To Be Something Other Than Who They Are

Life Is A Glorious Banquet, A Limitless And Delicious Buffet.

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

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.

No Sun Outlasts Its Sunset, But Will Rise Again And Bring The Dawn.

I Have Found That Among Its Other Benefits, Giving Liberates The Soul Of The Giver.

We All Have That Possibility, That Potential And That Promise Of Seeing Beyond The Seeming.

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.

Live Life As If It Were Created Just For You.

If You're For The Right Thing, You Do It Without Thinking.

Determine To Live Life With Flair And Laughter.

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

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

My Mother Is So Full Of Joy And Life. I Am Her Child. And That Is Better Than Being The Child Of Anyone Else In The World.

Your Life Is Much More Important That You Can Imagine... It Is Your First Treasure.

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.

Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike. Whether In Paris, Texas, Or Paris, France, We All Want To Have Good Jobs Where We Are Needed And Respected And Paid Just A Little More Than We Deserve. We Want Healthy Children, Safe Streets, To Be Loved And Have The Unmitigated Gall To Accept Love. If We Are Religious, We Want A Place To Perpetuate God. If Not, We Want A Good Lecture Every Once In A While. And Everyone Wants Someplace To Party On Saturday Nights.

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.

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

A Woman Needs Someone She Can Trust, Someone Who Laughs When She Laughs, But Who Has Different Ideas So She Can Learn From And Teach To Them. She Needs Someone Who Will Stand Up With Her And Encourage Her To Be A Woman-not Just A Female. See Where You Are, Admit What You Know, And What You Need, And Search For A Sister Friend.

To Be Angry Is Very Good. It Burns Out Things And Leaves Nutrients In The Soil. You Should Always Be Ready To Be Angry At Injustice And Cruelty.

If I Could Give You One Thought, It Would Be To Lift Someone Up. Lift A Stranger Up--lift Her Up. I Would Ask You, Mother And Father, Brother And Sister, Lovers, Mother And Daughter, Father And Son, Lift Someone. The Very Idea Of Lifting Someone Up Will Lift You, As Well.

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.

We Can Learn To See Each Other And See Ourselves In Each Other And Recognize That Human Beings Are More Alike Than We Are Unalike.

I Respect Myself And Insist Upon It From Everybody. And Because I Do It, I Then Respect Everybody, Too.

African American

On The Day Of Your Birth, The Creator Filled Countless Storehouses, Set Aside For Your Use And Yours Alone.

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?'

The Area Where We Are The Greatest Is The Area In Which We Inspire, Encourage And Connect With Another Human Being.

The Question Is Not How To Survive, But How To Thrive With Passion, Compassion, Humor And Style.

Everybody Born Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory.

I Think A Number Of The Leaders Are, Whether You Like It Or Not, In The Hip-hop Generation. And When They Understand Enough, They'll Do Wonders. I Count On Them.

My Grandmother Told Me That Every Good Thing I Do Helps Some Human Being In The World. I Believed Her 50 Years Ago And Still Do.

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.

My Mother Said I Must Always Be Intolerant Of Ignorance But Understanding Of Illiteracy.

I Have Risked Everything To Tell The Truth. Tell The Truth

Telling The Truth

Find A Beautiful Piece Of Art. If You Fall In Love With Van Gogh Or Matisse Or John Oliver Killens, Or If You Fall Love With The Music Of Coltrane, The Music Of Aretha Franklin, Or The Music Of Chopin - Find Some Beautiful Art And Admire It, And Realize That That Was Created By Human Beings Just Like You, No More Human, No Less.

Falling In Love

Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.

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

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.

In Order To Win, We Pay With Energy And Effort And Discipline. If We Lose, We Pay In Disappointment, Discontent, And Lack Of Fulfillment.

Of All The Needs (there Are None Imaginary) A Lonely Child Has, The One That Must Be Satisfied, If There Is Going To Be Hope And A Hope Of Wholeness, Is The Unshaking Need For An Unshakable God. My Pretty Black Brother Was My Kingdom Come.

Hope Does Not Take Away Your Problems. It Can Lift You Above Them.

We Are Only As Blind As We Want To Be.

Money And Power Can Liberate Only If They Are Used To Do So. They Can Imprison And Inhibit More Finally Than Barred Windows And Iron Chains.

I Love The Melodies In The Old Testament, How Preachers Highlight Them When They Read From The Scripture. But I Was Influenced Forever By The New Testament. I Love The Beatitudes, Informing Us That The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth.

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Sugar Ray Robinson

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