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One Must Learn To Care For Oneself First, So That One Can Then Dare To Care For Someone Else.
-Maya Angelou
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One Must Learn To

Maya Angelou
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One Must Learn To Care For Oneself First, So That One Can Then Dare To Care For Someone Else.

Understanding the Quote: "one must learn to care for oneself first, so that one can..."

This quote by Maya Angelou reflects deeply on the theme of care. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Care, Firsts, Dare, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Maya Angelou interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou is celebrated for insightful thoughts on care and firsts. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 54591
Topic
Care
Firsts
Dare
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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.
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Try To Be All You Can Be To Be The Best Human Being You Can Be. Try To Be That In Your Church, In Your Temple. Try To Be That In Your Classroom. Do It Because It Is Right To Do.
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Most Plain Girls Are Virtuous Because Of The Scarcity Of Opportunity To Be Otherwise.
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I Am A Woman Phenomenally, Phenomenal Woman That Is Your Grandmother, That Is Your Mother, That Is Your Sister, That Is You And That Is Me.
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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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Don't Let The Incidents Which Take Place In Life Bring You Low. And Certainly Don't Whine. You Can Be Brought Low, That's Ok, But Don't Be Reduced By Them. Just Say, 'that's Life.'
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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?
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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.
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Living Well Is An Art That Can Be Developed: A Love Of Life And Ability To Take Great Pleasure From Small Offerings And Assurance That The World Owes You Nothing And That Every Gift Is Exactly That, A Gift.
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Forgiveness. It's One Of The Greatest Gifts You Can Give Yourself, To Forgive. Forgive Everybody. You Are Relieved Of Carrying That Burden Of Resentment. You Really Are Lighter. You Feel Lighter. You Just Drop That.
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I Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Laugh.
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When My Grandmother Died, I Realized That Even If I Had Millions Of Dollars, I Couldn't Find Her Anywhere On Earth. My Next Thought Was That I Would Die. I Looked At My Life And Thought, "i'm Afraid To Die." I Concluded That Whether I Was Afraid Or Not, I Would Die. It Was One Of The Most Important Crossroads In My Life, Once I Realized That No Matter What, I Would Do This Thing, The Next Step Was To Think, "if I Am Going To Do The Most Difficult And Frightening Thing - Dying - Is It Possible That I Could Do Some Difficult And Impossible Things That Are Good?"
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Creativity Or Talent, Like Electricity, Is Something I Don't Understand But Something I'm Able To Harness And Use.
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Everybody Born Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory.
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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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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.
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The Most Called-upon Prerequisite Of A Friend Is An Accessible Ear.
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I've Had Rainbows In My Clouds.
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I Could Fall In Love With A Sumo Wrestler If He Told Stories And Made Me Laugh. Obviously, It Would Be Easier If Someone Was African-american And Lived Next Door And Went To The Same Church. Because Then I Wouldn't Have To Translate.
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To Grow Up Is To Stop Putting Blame On Parents.
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I Like To Go Back And Read Poems That I Wrote Fifty Years Ago, Twenty Years Ago, And Sometimes They Surprise Me - I Didn't Know I Knew That Then. Or Maybe I Didn't Know It Then, And I Know More Now.
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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!'
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I Believe That People Want The Scent Of Love, More Than Anything Else. And I Don't Mean Sentimentality, I Don't Mean Mush. I Mean That Idea, That Human Beings Are More Alike Than We Are Different. And That Means That I Can Love You. I Don't Mean Support You In Bad Things You Do, That I Can Understand Because You're A Human Being.
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Out Of The Huts Of History's Shame I Rise.
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I Know, That Since Life Is Our Most Precious Gift, And As Far As We Can Be Absolutely Certain, It's Given To Us To Live But Once, Let Us So Live We Will Not Regret Years Of Useless Virtue, And Inertia, And Timidity, And Ignorance, And In Our Last Moments We Can Say: 'all My Life, All My Conscious Energies, Have Been Dedicated To The Most Noble Cause In The World, The Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit - Beginning With My Own'.
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Years
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Wise
Doe
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Writing
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Some Critics Will Write 'maya Angelou Is A Natural Writer' - Which Is Right After Being A Natural Heart Surgeon.
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Writing
Heart
Growing Up, I Decided, A Long Time Ago, I Wouldn't Accept Any Manmade Differences Between Human Beings, Differences Made At Somebody Else's Insistence Or Someone Else's Whim Or Convenience.
Growing Up
Differences
Long
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Children
Responsibility
Thinking
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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Two
Exchange Love For Hate...thereby, Making The Present Comfortable And The Future Promising.
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Hate
Inspirational Forgiveness
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If I Am Not Good To Myself, How Can I Expect Anyone Else To Be Good To Me?
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I Think That Each Of Us Is So Much Alike, And Yet At The Same Time We Are So Different, And I Have A Feeling That If You Encountered Difficulty, And I With My Age Encountered The Same Difficulty, I Would Respond One Way, And You Would Respond Another. Neither Would Be Right Or Wrong. It's Just That Each Of Us Is Courageous, And That's What I Encourage, Courage, And The Courage To See, And The Courage To Say To Oneself What One Has Seen. Don't Be In Denial.
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Soft You Day, Be Velvet Soft, My True Love Approaches, Look You Bright, You Dusty Sun, Array Your Golden Coaches. Soft You Wind, Be Soft As Silk My True Love Is Speaking. Hold You Birds, Your Silver Throats, His Golden Voice I'm Seeking. Come You Death, In Haste, Do Come My Shroud Of Black Be Weaving, Quiet My Heart, Be Deathly Quiet, My True Love Is Leaving.
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Wind
Lord Keep Your Arm Around My Shoulder And Your Hand Over My Mouth.
Hands
Mouths
Arms
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Black
Church
Facts
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Humanity
World
Citizens
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.
Country
Trying
Culture
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Fall
Men
Knees
Try To Be A Rainbow In Someone's Cloud.
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Relationship
Inspiring
Laugh...it's The Sweetest Thing One Can Do For Oneself And One's Fellow Human Beings.
Laughing
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Humans
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The Dread Of Futility Has Been My Life-long Plague.
Life
Long
Futility
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Children
Sibling
Real
Women Should Be Tough, Tender, Laugh As Much As Possible, And Live Long Lives.
Life
Long
Laughing
Raising Kids Is Like Nailing Jell-o To A Tree.
Kids
Tree
Raising Kids
The Love Of The Family, The Love Of One Person Can Heal. It Heals The Scars Left By A Larger Society. A Massive, Powerful Society.
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Family
Powerful
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!
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Phones
People
Be Courageous, But Not Foolhardy. Walk Proud As You Are.
Proud
Courageous
Walks
Live As Though Life Was Created For You.
If You Have A Napkin, You Need Another Napkin To Receive Back All The Blessings You'll Get. And You Keep Giving. Then You Need A Towel To Receive All The Gifts. And You Continue Giving. Finally, You Need A Tablecloth. And You Continue Giving - Not Stupidly, But You Give. And When You Give, You Finally Have To Move Out And Get A Second House, And A Third House And A Fourth.it Is A No - Fail, Incontrovertible Reality: If You Get, Give. If You Learn, Teach. You Can't Do Anything With That Except Do It.
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Reality
Blessing
The Desire To Reach Hearts Is Wise
Wise
Heart
Ambition
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.
Responsibility
Trying
Debt
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Life
Spiritual
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.
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Two
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Humans
Achievement Brings Its Own Anticlimax.
Achievement
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Gratitude
Attitude
When We Give Cheerfully And Accept Gratefully, Everyone Is Blessed.
Thanksgiving
Thankful
Gratitude
Eating Is So Intimate. It's Very Sensual. When You Invite Someone To Sit At Your Table And You Want To Cook For Them, You're Inviting A Person Into Your Life.
Sensual
Tables
Want
Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.
Fire
Clean
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.
Lonely
Loneliness
Book
It Is Important That We Learn Humility, Which Says There Was Someone Else Before Me Who Paid For Me. My Responsibility Is To Prepare Myself So That I Can Pay For Someone Else Who Is Yet To Come.
Humility
Responsibility
Important
I've Learned That Making A 'living' Is Not The Same Thing As 'making A Life'.
Inspirational
Life
Second Chance
We Must Create A Climate Where People Agree That Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike. The Only Way To Do That Is Through Education.
Education
People
Climate
I Did What I Knew.. When I Knew Better, I Did Better
Elimination Of Illiteracy Is As Serious An Issue To Our History As The Abolition Of Slavery.
Abolition Of Slavery
Issues
Serious
The Ship Of My Life May Or May Not Be Sailing On Calm And Amiable Seas. The Challenging Days Of My Existence May Or May Not Be Bright And Promising. Stormy Or Sunny Days, Glorious Or Lonely Nights, I Maintain An Attitude Of Gratitude. If I Insist On Being Pessimistic, There Is Always Tomorrow. Today I Am Blessed.
Lonely
Gratitude
Attitude
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.
Dog
Writing
Ideas
I Am A Child Of God. I Always Carry That With Me.
Inspirational
Children
Child Of God
There Is A Very Fine Line Between Loving Life And Being Greedy For It.
Love
Life
Greed
To Be Left Alone On The Tightrope Of Youthful Unknowing Is To Experience The Excruciating Beauty Of Full Freedom And The Threat Of Eternal Indecision.
Indecision
Threat
Left Alone
If You Find It In Your Heart To Care For Somebody Else, You Will Have Succeeded.
Love
Inspirational
Broken Heart
Hoping For The Best, Prepared For The Worst, And Unsurprised By Anything In Between.
Inspirational
Success
Personal Growth
You Alone Are Enough. You Have Nothing To Prove To Anybody.
Inspirational
Inspiring
Moving On
There Is Nothing So Pitiful As A Young Cynic Because He Has Gone From Knowing Nothing To Believing Nothing.
Life Lesson
Believe
Knowing Nothing
You Are The Sum Total Of Everything You've Seen, Heard, Eaten, Smelled, Been Told, Forgot- It's All Right There.
Positivity
Heard
On Saturday Afternoons When All The Things Are Done In The House And There's No Real Work To Be Done, I Play Bach And Chopin And Turn It Up Real Loudly And Get A Good Bottle Of Chardonnay And Sit Out On My Deck And Look Out At The Garden.
Real
Garden
Play
When I Try To Describe Myself To God I Say, 'lord, Remember Me? Black? Female? Six-foot Tall? The Writer?' And I Almost Always Get God's Attention.
Feet
Black
Trying
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.
Giving Up
Responsibility
Thinking
We Are Growing Up. We Are Growing Up! Out Of The Idiocies - The Ignorances Of Racism And Sexism And Ageism And All Those Ignorances.
Growing Up
Ignorance
Racism
You May Not Control All The Events That Happen To You, But You Can Decide Not To Be Reduced By Them. Try To Be A Rainbow In Someone Else's Cloud. Do Not Complain. Make Every Effort To Change Things You Do Not Like. If You Cannot Make A Change, Change The Way You Have Been Thinking. You Might Find A New Solution.
Life
Thinking
Clouds
The Devil Lives In Our Mistakes, The Lord Lives In Our Rights. Who Lives In Our Ignorance, And Who Wins After All?
Life
Mistake
Ignorance
I’ve Got A Magic Charm That I Keep Up My Sleeve, I Can Walk The Ocean Floor And Never Have To Breathe.
Ocean
Magic
Breathe
I Think We Ought To Give Ourselves More Time. We Should Be More Patient With Ourselves And With Each Other.
Thinking
Giving
Patient
You Think You May Not Be Heard. Speak Anyway.
Thinking
May
Speak
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.
Strong Women
Humanness Is
Jewels
It Is Impossible To Struggle For Civil Rights, Equal Rights For Blacks, Without Including Whites. Because Equal Rights, Fair Play, Justice, Are All Like The Air: We All Have It, Or None Of Us Has It. That Is The Truth Of It.
Positive
Struggle
Rights
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
Women
Rivers
Spirit
A Woman Who Is Convinced That She Deserves To Accept Only The Best Challenges Herself To Give The Best. Then She Is Living Phenomenally.
Giving
Challenges
Accepting
It's Wonderful That Whenever Patsy Cline's Name Is Mentioned, People's Voices Fall And They Become Right Sentimental. And, Rightly So.
Fall
Names
Voice
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?
War
Mean
Long
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.
Christian
Buddhist
Morning
Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.
Influence
My Son Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me. And Through Me - To A Lot Of People.
Son
People
Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me
It May In Fact Be Utterly Impossible To Be Successful Without Helping Others To Become Successful.
Successful
Helping Others
May
If You're Going To Live, Leave A Legacy. Make A Mark On The World That Can't Be Erased.
Legacy
World
Mark
Don't Bring Negative To My Door.
Inspirational
Positive
Attitude
Poetry Helps My Soul Escape Its Encasement.
Soul
Helping
My Soul
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.
Consistency
Have Courage
Merciful
I Suggest That The Great Art Belongs To All People, All The Time--that Indeed It Is Made For The People, By The People, To The People.
Art
People
Made
Oh, The Holiness Of Always Being The Injured Party. The Historically Oppressed Can Find Not Only Sanctity But Safety In The Stateof Victimization. When Access To A Better Life Has Been Denied Often Enough, And Successfully Enough, One Can Use The Rejection As An Excuse To Cease All Efforts. After All, One Reckons, "they" Don't Want Me, "they" Accept Their Own Mediocrity And Refuse My Best, "they" Don't Deserve Me.
Party
Safety
Effort
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.
Baby
Teaching
Giving
If You Have, Give. If You Learn, Teach.
Giving
Teach
Ifs
Education Helps One Case Cease Being Intimidated By Strange Situations.
Education
Helping
Strange
In A World So Rife With Vulgarity, With Brutality And Violence, Love Exists. I’m Grateful To Know That It Exists.
Grateful
Brutality
World
Oh, The Holiness Of Being The Injured Party.
Party
Holiness
Injured
I Think That That's The Wisest Thing - To Prevent Illness Before We Try To Cure Something.
Thinking
Trying
Illness
I Wrote Some Of The Worst Poetry West From The Mississippi River, But I Wrote. And I Finally Sometimes Got It Right.
Rivers
West
Sometimes
Without Willing It, I Had Gone From Being Ignorant Of Being Ignorant To Being Aware Of Being Aware. And The Worst Part Of My Awareness Was That I Didn't Know What I Was Aware Of. I Knew I Knew Very Little, But I Was Certain That The Things I Had Yet To Learn Wouldn't Be Taught To Me At George Washington High School.
School
Ignorant
Gone
"baby, You Know?" My Mother Once Said To Me. "i Think You're The Greatest Woman I've Ever Met - And I'm Not Including My Mother Or Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt In That." She Said, "you Are Very Intelligent And You're Very Kind, And Those Two Qualities Do Not Often Go Together." Then She Went Across The Street And Got In Her Car, And I Went The Other Way Down To The Streetcar. I Thought, "suppose She's Right. She's Intelligent - And She's Too Mean To Lie." You See, A Parent Has The Chance - And Maybe The Responsibility - To Liberate Her Child. And My Mom Had Liberated Me When I Was 17.
Mom
Mother
Baby
In A Magazine, One Can Get - From Cover To Cover - 15 To 20 Different Ideas About Life And How To Live It.
Ideas
Different Ideas
Different
A Single Fantasy Can Transform A Million Realities.
Reality
Fantasy
Millions
The Horizon Leans Forward, Offering You Space To Place New Steps Of Change.
Graduation
Space
Offering
Do Not Be Wedded Forever To Fear, Yoked Eternally To Brutishness.
Forever
A Woman In Harmony With Her Spirit Is Like A River Flowing.
Rivers
Spirit
Harmony
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.
Dream
Believe
Home
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.
Running
Feet
Black
Some Think, "if I Marry This Guy Who's Two Inches Taller Than I Am And Who Has A Nice Bank Account, I Won't Die. If I Buy Six Cars, I Won't Die. If I Hate Jews, I Won't Die. If I Hate Homosexuals, I Won't Die." They Think They Will Increase Their Life By Shunting Misery Onto Somebody Else, But It's Just The Opposite.
Nice
Hate
Thinking
Whenever Something Went Wrong When I Was Young - If I Had A Pimple Or If My Hair Broke - My Mom Would Say, 'sister Mine, I'm Going To Make You Some Soup.' And I Really Thought The Soup Would Make My Pimple Go Away Or My Hair Stronger.
Mom
Hair
Stronger
I've Learned That Whenever I Decide Something With An Open Heart, I Usually Make The Right Decision.
Inspirational
Heart
Decision
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.
Growing Up
Grandmother
Italian
Hope For The Best, Be Prepared For The Worse. Life Is Shocking, But You Must Never Appear To Be Shocked. For No Matter How Bad It Is It Could Be Worse And No Matter How Good It Is It Could Be Better.
Life
Matter
Hoping For The Best
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.
Life
Courage
Loneliness
The Difference Between Charity And Philanthropy Is The Distance Of The Soul... To Be Philanthropic Is To Give Something, To Be Charitable Is To Give One's Own Heart.
Distance
Heart
Differences
Time Itself Is An Individual Gift. It Is Wise To Cherish It Carefully And Give It Away Generously.
Wise
Giving
Cherish
Don't Hesitate To Learn The Most Painful Aspects Of Our History, Understand It.
Painful
Aspect
Life Offers Us Tickets To Places Which We Have Not Knowingly Asked For.
Tickets
Offers
In Order To Be A Mentor, And An Effective One, One Must Care. You Must Care. You Don't Have To Know How Many Square Miles Are In Idaho, You Don't Need To Know What Is The Chemical Makeup Of Chemistry, Or Of Blood Or Water. Know What You Know And Care About The Person, Care About What You Know And Care About The Person You're Sharing With.
Makeup
Blood
Order
You Can Only Accomplish What I Really Love. Do Not Take The Money As A Goal. Instead, Pursue The Things You Passionate About, And Do Good To Others Can Not Take My Eyes Off You
Eye
Goal
Passionate
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.'
Writing
Lord
Angelou
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.
Iron
Window
Used
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?
Life
Dance
Upset
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.
Air
Sky
Voice
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."
Art
Life Changing
Writing
Open Your Eyes To The Beauty Around You, Open Your Mind To The Wonders Of Life, Open Your Heart To Those Who Love You, And Always Be True To Yourself.
Love You
Eye
Heart
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.
Work
Doe
Needs
If Somebody Is Really Trying To Take Your Head Off With A Baseball Bat - I Don't Know How Long You're Supposed To Stand There And Turn The Other Cheek, So He Or She Can Get A Better Angle At Taking Your Head Off.
Baseball
Long
Trying
The Breezes Of The West African Night Were Intimate And Shy, Licking The Hair, Sweeping Through Cotton Dresses With Unseemly Intimacy, Then Disappearing Into The Utter Blackness.
Night
Hair
Dresses
Most People Don't Grow Up. It's Too Damn Difficult. What Happens Is Most People Get Older.
Growing Up
People
Damn
In Diversity There Is Beauty And There Is Strength.
Inspirational
Strength
Beauty
Precious Jewel, You Glow, You Shine, Reflecting All The Good Things In The World. Just Look At Yourself.
Precious Jewels
Shining
Looks
If You Must Look Back, Do So Forgivingly. If You Will Look Forward, Do So Prayerfully. But The Wisest Course Would Be To Be Present In The Present Gratefully.
Would Be
Looks
Courses
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.
Want
Honest
Shows
Living Well Is An Art That Can Be Developed.
Art
Live Well
Wells
A Woman Who Is Convinced That She Deserves To Accept Only The Best Challenges Herself To Give The Best. Then She Is Living Phenomenally.
Giving
Challenges
Accepting
I Can Be Changed By What Happens To Me. But I Refuse To Be Reduced By It.
Inspirational
Motivational
Change
I Have Need Of A Friend. There Is One And Only One Who Will Give The Air From His Failing Lungs For My Body's Mend. And That One Is My Love.
Air
Giving
Needs
When I Write, I Tend To Twist My Hair. Something For My Small Mind To Do, I Guess.
Writing
Hair
Mind
All Men Are Prepared To Accomplish The Incredible If Their Ideals Are Threatened.
Inspiring
Courage
Thoughtful
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