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

-Maya Angelou

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Seek Patience And Passion

Maya Angelou

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

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The Whites Were Really Brutishly Ignorant, Blitheringly, So They Killed People Sometimes - Just Came Into The African-american Community And Maimed People Because They Didn't Agree With God's Choice For The Colors Of The People's Skin.

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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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A Story Went The Rounds About A San Franciscan White Matron Who Refused To Sit Beside A Negro Civilian On The Streetcar, Even After He Made Room For Her On The Seat. Her Explanation Was That She Would Not Sit Beside A Draft Dodger Who Was A Negro As Well. She Added That The Least He Could Do Was Fight For His Country The Way Her Son Was Fighting On Iwo Jima. The Story Said That The Man Pulled His Body Away From The Window To Show An Armless Sleeve. He Said Quietly And With Great Dignity, "then Ask Your Son To Look Around For My Arm, Which I Left Over There.

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It May In Fact Be Utterly Impossible To Be Successful Without Helping Others To Become Successful.

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.

Each Of Us Has The Right And The Responsibility To Assess The Roads Which Lie Ahead, And Those Over Which We Have Traveled, And If The Future Road Looms Ominous Or Unpromising, And The Roads Back Uninviting, Then We Need To Gather Our Resolve And, Carrying Only The Necessary Baggage, Step Off That Road Into Another Direction. If The New Choice Is Also Unpalatable, Without Embarrassment, We Must Be Ready To Change That As Well.

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.

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

Life Loves The Liver Of It. You Must Live And Life Will Be Good To You.

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Anything That Works Against You Can Also Work For You Once You Understand The Principle Of Reverse.

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

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.

The Idea Of Overcoming Is Always Fascinating To Me. It's Fascinating Because Few Of Us Realize How Much Energy We Have Expended Just To Be Here Today. I Don't Think We Give Ourselves Enough Credit For The Overcoming.

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.

Everyone Grows Old But Not Everyone Grows Up.

Remember This: When You Cross My Doorstep, You Have Already Been Raised. With What You Have Learned...you Know The Difference Between Right And Wrong. Do Right. Don't Anybody Raise You From The Way You Have Been Raised. Know You Will Have To Make Adaptations, In Love, In Relationships, In Friends, In Society, In Work, But Don't Let Anybody Change Your Mind.

The Black Kids, The Poor White Kids, Spanish-speaking Kids, And Asian Kids In The Us - In The Face Of Everything To The Contrary, They Still Bop And Bump, Shout And Go To School Somehow. Their Optimism Gives Me Hope.

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.

First Best Is Falling In Love. Second Best Is Being In Love. Least Best Is Falling Out Of Love. But Any Of It Is Better Than Never Having Been In Love.

Falling In Love

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

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

Don't Let The Man Bring You Down.

Freedom Is Never Free.

Everyone Has At Least One Story, And Each Of Us Is Funny If We Admit It. You Have To Admit You're The Funniest Person You've Ever Heard Of.

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

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.

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

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

To Know And Not To Do Is In Fact Not To Know. We Need To Be Active Instruments Against Evil. We Need To Do.

Food Served Is Always More Than Just Food Served. That Is To Say, It Is More Than Just Fuel For The Body. Depending Upon Who Has Prepared The Food And Who Has Served It And With What Spirit, It Can Uplift The - And Around The World, In Every Culture, Food Is Used To Flirt, To Be Coy, A Raise In The Employment Or To Search For Employment. It Can Bring Warring Factions Together.

I Never Expected Anyone To Take Care Of Me, But In My Wildest Dreams And Juvenile Yearnings, I Wanted The House With The Picket Fence From June Allyson Movies. I Knew That Was Yearning Like One Yearns To Fly.

I've Lived Many Places On The Planet, And I Still Have Friends In Many Places.

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.

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."

You Can't Get Too High For Somebody To Bring You Down.

Raising Kids Is Like Nailing Jell-o To A Tree.

The Best Candy Shop A Child Can Be Left Alone In, Is The Library

Grace Is Like A Lake Of Drinkable Water Right Outside Your Door. But You Stay Inside And Die Of Thirst.

Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

Being Thankful Helps You To Be Present.people Commit Errors Because They Are Not Present.i Would Encourage Women And Men To Be Present - You'll Avoid Falling Into Certain Pits.for Instance, If You Know That A Person Has Just Lost His Wife Or Her Husband Or Lover, It's Unlikely That You Will Say Something That Will Hurt That Person's Feelings If You're Truly Paying Attention. You'll Make A Sweeter Life For Yourself And For Those Around You If You Are Present.

I Not Only Have The Right To Stand Up For Myself, But I Have The Responsibility. I Can't Ask Somebody Else To Stand Up For Me If I Won't Stand Up For Myself. And Once You Stand Up For Yourself, You'd Be Surprised That People Say, "can I Be Of Help?".

I Might Have It At Six-fifteen A.m. Just As Soon As I Get In, But Usually It's About Eleven O'clock When I'll Have A Glass Of Sherry.

Look What You've Already Come Through! Don't Deny It. Say I'm Stronger Than I Thought I Was

I Don't Think Modesty Is A Very Good Virtue, If It Is A Virtue At All. A Modest Person Will Drop The Modesty In A Minute. It's A Learned Affectation.

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

The White American Man Makes The White American Woman Maybe Not Superfluous But Just A Little Kind Of Decoration. Not Really Important To Turning Around The Wheels Of The State. Well The Black American Woman Has Never Been Able To Feel That Way. No Black American Man At Any Time In Our History In The United States Has Been Able To Feel That He Didn't Need That Black Woman Right Against Him, Shoulder To Shoulder-in That Cotton Field, On The Auction Block, In The Ghetto, Wherever.

Lord Keep Your Arm Around My Shoulder And Your Hand Over My Mouth.

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.

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

It's Very Important To Know The Neighbor Next Door And The People Down The Street And The People In Another Race.

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.

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.

You Can Never Be Great At Anything Unless You Love It.

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

What We Really Have To Do Is Take A Day And Sit Down And Think. The World Is Not Going To End Or Fall Apart. Jobs Won't Be Lost. Kids Will Not Run Crazy In One Day. Lovers Won't Stop Speaking To You. Husbands And Wives Are Not Going To Disappear. Just Take That One Day And Think. Don't Read. Don't Write. No Television, No Radio, No Distractions. Sit Down And Think. . . . Go Sit In A Church, Or In The Park, Or Take A Long Walk And Think. Call It A Healing Day.

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.

Everything Costs And Costs The Earth.

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.

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.

Any Book That Helps A Child To Form A Habit Of Reading, To Make Reading One Of His Deep And Continuing Needs, Is Good For Him.

It's Amazing. I Can Do Anything. And Do It Well. Any Good Thing, I Can Do It. That's Why I Am Who I Am, Yes, Because God Loves Me And I'm Amazed At It. I'm Grateful For It.

You Have To Develop Ways So That You Can Take Up For Yourself, And Then You Take Up For Someone Else. And So Sooner Or Later, You Have Enough Courage To Really Stand Up For The Human Race And Say, 'i'm A Representative. '

When You Do Nothing You Feel Overwhelmed And Powerless. But When You Get Involved You Feel The Sense Of Hope And Accomplishment That Comes From Knowing You Are Working To Make Things Better.

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.

We Are Here To Love Each Other. That Is Why You Are Alive. That Is What Life Is For.

Love Each Other

Christians Already? It Seems To Me That It Takes A Lifetime Of Work.

I Also Wear A Hat Or A Very Tightly Pulled Head Tie When I Write. I Suppose I Hope By Doing That I Will Keep My Brains From Seeping Out Of My Scalp And Running In Great Gray Blobs Down My Neck, Into My Ears, And Over My Face.

Continue To Plant A Kiss Of Concern On The Cheek Of The Sick And The Aged And Infirm And Count That Actions As Natural And To Be Expected.

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

The Most Difficult Thing In The World, It Seems To Me, Is To Realize That I Am A Child Of God; To Keep That In My Mind All The Time.

There's Something Which Impels Us To Show Our Inner Souls. The More Courageous We Are, The More We Succeed In Explaining What We Know.

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

When Was The Last Time Anyone Ever Told You How Important You Are?

When I'm 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.

The Most Noble Cause Known To Man Is The Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit.

Whining Is Just Unbecoming.

I'm Grateful To Be An American. I Am Grateful That We Can Be Angry At The Terrorist Assault And At The Same Time Be Intelligent Enough Not To Hold A Grudge Against Every Arab And Every Muslim.

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.

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.

We Are Here To Love Each Other. That Is Why You Are Alive. That Is What Life Is For.

Love Each Other

I'm Working At Trying To Be A Christian And That's Serious Business. It's Like Trying To Be A Good Jew, A Good Muslim, A Good Buddhist, A Good Shintoist, A Good Zoroastrian, A Good Friend, A Good Lover, A Good Mother, A Good Buddyit's Serious Business. It's Not Something Where You Think, Oh, I've Got It Done. I Did It All Day, Hotdiggety. The Truth Is, All Day Long You Try To Do It, Try To Be It, And Then In The Evening If You're Honest And Have A Little Courage You Look At Yourself And Say, Hmm. I Only Blew It Eighty-six Times. Not Bad.

Find Something You Like, Go Into A Room, Close The Door And Read It Aloud. Read It Aloud. Everybody In The World Who Likes Dance Can See Dance, Or Hear Music, Or See Art, Or Admire Architecture - But Everybody In The World Uses Words Who Is Not A Recluse Or Mute. But The Writer Has To Take These Most Common Things, More Common Than Musical Notes Or Dance Positions, A Writer Has To Take Some Adverbs, And Verbs And Nouns And Ball Them Up Together And Make Them Bounce.

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

"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.

Each Child Belongs To All Of Us And They Will Bring Us A Tomorrow In Direct Relation To The Responsibility We Have Shown To Them.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

If You Have Done The Best You Can Do And If You Have Gotten All You Could Extract From Something, You Have Given All You Had To Give, Then The Time Has Come When You Can Do No More Than Say Thank You And Move On.

You Think You May Not Be Heard. Speak Anyway.

I've Learned That You Shouldn't Go Through Life With A Catcher's Mitt On Both Hands; You Need To Be Able To Throw Something Back.

Until Blacks And Whites See Each Other As Brother And Sister, We Will Not Have Parity. It's Very Clear.

No One Comes From The Earth Like Grass. We Come Like Trees. We All Have Roots.

We Are All Creative, But By The Time We Are Three Of Four Years Old, Someone Has Knocked The Creativity Out Of Us. Some People Shut Up The Kids Who Start To Tell Stories. Kids Dance In Their Cribs, But Someone Will Insist They Sit Still. By The Time The Creative People Are Ten Or Twelve, They Want To Be Like Everyone Else.

Exchange Love For Hate...thereby, Making The Present Comfortable And The Future Promising.

Inspirational Forgiveness

Because Of The Routines We Follow, We Often Forget That Life Is An Ongoing Adventure. . . Life Is Pure Adventure, And The Sooner We Realize That, The Quicker We Will Be Able To Treat Life As Art: To Bring All Our Energies To Each Encounter, To Remain Flexible Enough To Notice And Admit When What We Expected To Happen Did Not Happen. We Need To Remember That We Are Created Creative And Can Invent New Scenarios As Frequently As They Are Needed.

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.

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.

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.

We Do The Best We Can With What We Know, And When We Know Better, We Do Better.

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

Black People Comprehend The South. We Understand Its Weight. It Has Rested On Our Backs... I Knew That My Heart Would Break If Ever I Put My Foot Down On That Soil, Moist, Still, With Old Hurts. I Had To Face The Fear/loathing At Its Source Or It Would Consume Me Whole.

All Men Are Prepared To Accomplish The Incredible If Their Ideals Are Threatened.

Those Of Us Who Submitted Or Surrendered Our Ideas And Dreams And Identities To The 'leaders' Must Take Back Our Rights, Our Identities, Our Responsibilities.

If God Put The Rainbows Right In The Clouds Themselves, Each One Of Us In The Direst And Dullest And Most Dreaded And Dreary Moments Can See A Possibility Of Hope ... Each One Of Us Has The Chance To Be A Rainbow In Somebody's Cloud.

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

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