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That Knowledge Humbles Me, Melts My Bones, Closes My Ears, And Makes My Teeth Rock Loosely In Their Gums. And It Also Liberates Me. I Am A Big Bird Winging Over High Mountains, Down Into Serene Valleys. I Am Ripples Of Waves On Silver Seas. I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

-Maya Angelou

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That Knowledge Humbles Me,

Maya Angelou

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That Knowledge Humbles Me, Melts My Bones, Closes My Ears, And Makes My Teeth Rock Loosely In Their Gums. And It Also Liberates Me. I Am A Big Bird Winging Over High Mountains, Down Into Serene Valleys. I Am Ripples Of Waves On Silver Seas. I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

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There's A Place In You That You Must Keep Inviolate. You Must Keep It Pristine. Clean. So That Nobody Has A Right To Curse You Or Treat You Badly. Nobody. No Mother, Father, No Wife, No Husband, No-nobody. You Have To Have A Place Where You Say: 'stop It. Back Up. Don't You Know I'm A Child Of God?

Indeed We Have Souls. And If A Person Is Religious, I Think It's Good, It Helps You A Bit. But If You're Not, At Least You Can Have The Sense That There Is A Condition Inside You Which Looks At The Stars With Amazement And Awe. That Listens To Water With A River Flowing, Or Water Falling In Rain And Is Lifted Up By That And Listens To A Wonderful Singer, Wonderful Musicians, Listens To Maybe Duke Ellington Or Frank Sinatra Or Listens To Odetta And Mary J. Blige. Yes, And Thinks Whoo! And Thinks, Yes, Hmm, All Right Now. My Soul Has Been Washed. I Feel Better, I Feel Stronger.

I Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Laugh.

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

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.

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 Know Some People Might Think It Odd - Unworthy Even - For Me To Have Written A Cookbook, But I Make No Apologies. The U.s. Poet Laureate Billy Collins Thought I Had Demeaned Myself By Writing Poetry For Hallmark Cards, But I Am The People's Poet So I Write For The People.

Hatred Is The Ballast Of The Rock Which Lies Upon Our Necks And Underfoot.

The Black Female Is Assaulted In Her Tender Years By All Those Common Forces Of Nature At The Same Time She Is Caught In The Tripartite Crossfire Of Masculine Prejudice, White Illogical Hate And Black Lack Of Power.

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

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

Each Of Us Has That Right, That Possibility, To Invent Ourselves Daily. If A Person Does Not Invent Herself, She Will Be Invented. So, To Be Bodacious Enough To Invent Ourselves Is Wise.

I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave

African American

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

Reality Has Changed Chameleonlike Before My Eyes So Many Times That I Have Learned, Or Am Learning, To Trust Almost Anything Except What Appears To Be So.

I Had Read A Tale Of Two Cities And Found It Up To My Standards As A Romantic Novel. She Opened The First Page And I Heard Poetry For The First Time In My Life...her Voice Slid In And Curved Down Trough And Over The Words. She Was Nearly Singing.

I 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.

Ritie, Don't Worry 'cause You Ain't Pretty. Plenty Pretty Women I Seen Digging Ditches Or Worse. You Smart. I Swear To God, I Rather You Have A Good Mind Than A Cute Behind.

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.

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.

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.

We Have To Confront Ourselves. Do We Like What We See In The Mirror? And, According To Our Light, According To Our Understanding, According To Our Courage, We Will Have To Say Yea Or Nay - And Rise!

When Someone Shows You Who They Are, Believe Them The First Time.

If I Insist On Being Pessimistic, There Is Always Tomorrow. Today I Am Blessed.

We Must Infuse Our Lives With Art. Our National Leaders Must Be Informed That We Want Them To Use Our Taxes To Support Street Theatre In Order To Oppose Street Gangs. We Should Have A Well-supported Regional Theatre In Order To Oppose Regionalism And.

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.

At Our Best, We Are All Teachers

Facts Can Obscure The Truth.

The Truth Is, No One Of Us Can Be Free Until Everybody Is Free.

Love Is That Condition In The Human Spirit So Profound That It Empowers Us To Develop Courage; To Trust That Courage And Build Bridges With It; To Trust Those Bridges And Cross Over Them So We Can Attempt To Reach Each Other.

Facts Can Obscure The Truth.

We Need To Remember That We Are All Created Creative And Can Invent New Scenarios As Frequently As They Are Needed.

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

I Have A Son, Who Is My Heart. A Wonderful Young Man, Daring And Loving And Strong And Kind.

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

Love Each Other

Being A Woman Is Hard Work.

I Speak To The Black Experience, But I Am Always Talking About The Human Condition.

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.

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.

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

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.

We Need To Remember That We Are All Created Creative And Can Invent New Scenarios As Frequently As They Are Needed.

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

We Are Growing Up. We Are Growing Up! Out Of The Idiocies - The Ignorances Of Racism And Sexism And Ageism And All Those Ignorances.

Precious Jewel, You Glow, You Shine, Reflecting All The Good Things In The World. Just Look At Yourself.

Precious Jewels

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

I Don't Know If I Continue, Even Today, Always Liking Myself. But What I Learned To Do Many Years Ago Was To Forgive Myself. It Is Very Important For Every Human Being To Forgive Herself Or Himself Because If You Live, You Will Make Mistakes - It Is Inevitable. But Once You Do And You See The Mistake, Then You Forgive Yourself And Say, 'well, If I'd Known Better I'd Have Done Better,' That's All.

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

I Love A Statement By The Apostle Paul, In The Book Of Philippians In The Bible. I Think The Corinthians Had Been Writing To Paul, Telling Him That Old Men Were Chasing Young Women, Nobody Was Tithing - And All That Must Have Run Paul Crazy. He Wrote Back And Said, "if There Be Anything Of Good Report, Speak Of These Things." That's One Of My Principles.it's Another Discipline That I Encourage Myself To Employ - To, As Much As Possible, Say The Courteous Thing, And Then Be It.

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've Learned That Whenever I Decide Something With An Open Heart, I Usually Make The Right Decision.

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

Prejudice Is A Burden That Confuses The Past, Threatens The Future And Renders The Present Inaccessible.

People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

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

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?

Preach It, I Say Preach It.

By Love I Don't Mean Indulgence. I Do Not Mean Sentimentality. And In This Instance, I Don't Even Mean Romance. I Mean That Condition That Allowed Humans To Dream Of God.that Condition That Allowed The "dumb" To Write Spirituals And Russian Songs And Irish Lilts. That Is Love, And It's So Much Larger Than Anything I Can Conceive.

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

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

If You Are Going Down A Road And Don't Like What's In Front Of You, And Look Behind You And Don't Like What You See, Get Off The Road. Create A New Path!

Positive Attitude

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.

I Note The Obvious Differences Between Each Sort And Type, But We Are More Alike, My Friends, Than We Are Unalike.

At One Time, You Could Sit On The Rue De La Paix In Paris Or At The Habima Theater In Tel Aviv Or In Medina And You Could See A Person Come In, Black, White, It Didn't Matter. You Said, 'that's An American' Because There's A Readiness To Smile And To Talk To People.

My Heart Is So Heavy When I See The Reality Of The Indian Reservation And As An American, I Know I Am, Too, Responsible.

There Were People Who Went To Sleep Last Night, Poor And Rich And White And Black, But They Will Never Wake Again. And Those Dead Folks Would Give Anything At All For Just Five Minutes Of This Weather Or Ten Minutes Of Plowing. So You Watch Yourself About Complaining. What You're Supposed To Do When You Don't Like A Thing Is Change It. If You Can't Change It, Change The Way You Think About It.

You Can Practice Any Virtue Erratically, But Nothing Consistently Without Courage.

I Refuse To Allow Any Man-made Differences To Separate Me From Any Other Human Beings.

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

I Know That When I Pray, Something Wonderful Happens. Not Just To The Person Or Persons For Whom I'm Praying, But Also Something Wonderful Happens To Me. I'm Grateful That I'm Heard.

When I Was Asked To Do Something Good, I Often Say Yes, I'll Try, Yes, I'll Do My Best. And Part Of That Is Believing, If God Loves Me, If God Made Everything From Leaves To Seals And Oak Trees, Then What Is It I Can't Do?

I Can See In The Acorn The Oak Tree. I See The Growth, The Rebuilding, The Restoring. I See That Is The American Psyche. There Is So Much We Can Draw Understanding From. One Of The Lessons Is The Development Of Courage. Because Without Courage, You Can't Practice Any Of The Other Virtues Consistently.

You Will Face Many Defeats In Your Life, But Never Let Yourself Be Defeated.

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

For Africa To Me... Is More Than A Glamorous Fact. It Is A Historical Truth. No Man Can Know Where He Is Going Unless He Knows Exactly Where He Has Been And Exactly How He Arrived At His Present Place.

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.

There Are Those Who Say That Poets Should Use Her And His Art To Change The World. I'd Agree With That, But I Think Everybody Should Do That. I Think The Chef And The Baker And The Candlestick Maker - I Think Everybody Should Be Hoping To Make It A Better World.

If You Find It In Your Heart To Care For Somebody Else, You Will Have Succeeded.

I'm A Serious Aficionada Of Country Music - Reba Mcentire, Toby Keith, Montgomery Gentry. I've Even Written Some Songs. They Haven't Done Anything Of Mine Yet. But It's Only A Matter Of Time.

Courage Allows The Successful Woman To Fail - And To Learn Powerful Lessons From The Failure - So That In The End, She Didn't Fail At All.

The Truth Brings The Past Into The Present And Prepares Us For The Future. That's What Truth Does

Past Present Future

Of Course, There Are Those Critics - New York Critics As A Rule - Who Say, 'well, Maya Angelou Has A New Book Out And Of Course It's Good But Then She's A Natural Writer.' Those Are The Ones I Want To Grab By The Throat And Wrestle To The Floor Because It Takes Me Forever To Get It To Sing. I Work At The Language.

Whatever You Want To Do, If You Want To Be Great At It, You Have To Love It And Be Able To Make Sacrifices For It.

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

Tell The Truth And Not The Facts.

Telling The Truth

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

I've Never Had A Dislike For Men. I've Been Badly Treated By Some. But I've Been Loved Greatly By Some. I Married A Lot Of Them.

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes.

If A Human Being Dreams A Great Dream, Dares To Love Somebody; If A Human Being Dares To Be Martin King, Or Mahatma Gandhi, Or Mother Theresa, Or Malcolm X; If A Human Being Dares To Be Bigger Than The Condition Into Which She Or He Was Born-it Means So Can You. And So You Can Try To Stretch, Stretch, Stretch Yourself So You Can Internalize, 'homo Sum, Humani Nil A Me Alienum Puto. I Am A Human Being, Nothing Human Can Be Alien To Me.' That's One Thing I'm Learning.

I Don't Believe An Accident Of Birth Makes People Sisters Or Brothers. It Makes Them Siblings, Gives Them Mutuality Of Parentage. Sisterhood And Brotherhood Is A Condition People Have To Work At.

I Go To A Hotel And Try To Get There By 5:30 In The Morning. I Keep A Dictionary, A Thesaurus, A Bible, A Deck Of Playing Cards, A Bottle Of Sherry, And Stacks Of Yellow Sticky Pads. I Shut Myself In For Six, Seven Hours. I Have An Arrangement With The Hotel That No One May Go In My Room. After Three Or Four Months, They Might Slip Notes Under My Door Like, "dear Ms. Angelou, Please Let Us Change The Linens. We Think They Might Be Molding." It's Probably True. I Let Them In If They Promise Not To Touch Anything Other Then The Bed.

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 Answer The Heroic Question, 'death, Where Is Thy Sting?' With 'it Is In My Heart And Mind And Memories.

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

The Country Didn't Get That Way In A Week; We've Had Years And Years Of Getting Behind In Our Economy. So President [barack] Obama Stepped Into A Hellhole And People Wanted Him To Change It As Soon As He Came In. But He's Got His Adversaries To Deal With In The House And Senate, So It's Not Easy.

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

Be Courageous, But Not Foolhardy. Walk Proud As You Are.

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.

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.

But Still, Like Air, I'll Rise

Never, Never Let A Person Know You're Frightened. And A Group Of Them ... Absolutely Never. Fear Brings Out The Worst In Everybody.

The Public Library Building, In My View, Is Just A Little Lower Than The Church, The Cathedral, The Temple, The Synagogue And The Mosque. Within Those Walls And Along Those Stacks, I Have Found Security And Assurance.

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

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.

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

I've Always Written. There's A Journal Which I Kept From About 9 Years Old. The Man Who Gave It To Me Lived Across The Street From The Store And Kept It When My Grandmother's Papers Were Destroyed. I'd Written Some Essays. I Loved Poetry, Still Do. But I Really, Really Loved It Then.

Being Free Is Being Able To Accept People For What They Are, And Not Try To Understand All They Are Or Be What They Are.

I Know That When I Pray, Something Wonderful Happens. Not Just To The Person Or Persons For Whom I'm Praying, But Also Something Wonderful Happens To Me. I'm Grateful That I'm Heard.

That Knowledge Humbles Me, Melts My Bones, Closes My Ears, And Makes My Teeth Rock Loosely In Their Gums. And It Also Liberates Me. I Am A Big Bird Winging Over High Mountains, Down Into Serene Valleys. I Am Ripples Of Waves On Silver Seas. I'm A Spring Leaf Trembling In Anticipation.

If You Have Only One Smile In You, Give It To The People You Love. Don't Be Surly At Home, Then Go Out In The Street And Start Grinning 'good Morning' At Total Strangers.

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

Give Yourself Time Just To Be With Yourself.

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

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.

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

If Men Are God's Gift To Women, Then God Must Really Love Gag Gifts.

It Is Imperative That Young White Men And Women Study The Black American History. It Is Imperative That Blacks And Whites Study The Asian American History.

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.

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.

Everybody Is Worth Everything.

As Soon As Healing Takes Place, Go Out And Heal Somebody Else.

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.

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. So That We Can See, "oh, That Happened, And I Rose. 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." That's How You Get To Know Yourself.

Thank You, Always Say Thank You; It's The Greatest Gift You Can Give Someone; Because Thank You Is What You Say To God.

Saying Thank You

Try, Start Always At Home. This Is My Encouragement To All Writers, Start At Home. All Virtues And Vices Begin At Home, And Then Spread Abroad.

The First Thing I Do In The Morning When I Awaken Is Say, 'thank You, Lord!' I'm Grateful To Be Alive, And I'm Going To Try To Tell The Truth As Well As I Know And Tell It As Eloquently As I Can So That People Can Hear It.

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.

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.

To Make A Difference Is Not A Matter Of Accident...people Choose To Make A Difference.

Making A Difference

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 Believe In Living A Poetic Life, An Art Full Life. Everything We Do From The Way We Raise Our Children To The Way We Welcome Our Friends Is Part Of A Large Canvas We Are Creating.

Inspirational Life

I Like To Speak On Matters Which Matter To Human Beings, And Almost Everything Matters To Human Beings.

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

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

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.

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.

If I'm The People's Poet, Then I Ought To Be In People's Hands - And, I Hope, In Their Heart.

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.

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

You Are The Sum Total Of Everything You've Seen, Heard, Eaten, Smelled, Been Told, Forgot- It's All Right There.

Let Us Live So We Do Not Regret Years Of Inertia And Ignorance, So When We Die We Can Say All Of Our Energy Was Dedicated To The Noble Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit, Beginning With My Own.

By Love I Don't Mean Indulgence. I Do Not Mean Sentimentality. And In This Instance, I Don't Even Mean Romance. I Mean That Condition That Allowed Humans To Dream Of God.that Condition That Allowed The "dumb" To Write Spirituals And Russian Songs And Irish Lilts. That Is Love, And It's So Much Larger Than Anything I Can Conceive.

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.

If You Want To Liberate Someone, Love Them.not Be In Love With Them - That's Dangerous. If You're In Love With Your Children, You're In Their Lives All The Time. Leave Them Alone! Let Them Grow And Make Some Mistakes. Tell Them, "you Can Come Home. My Arms Are Here - And My Mouth Is Too." When You Really Love Them, You Don't Want To Possess Them. You Don't Say, "i Love You And I Want You Here With Me."

The Woman Who Truly Intends To Live A Good Life Is Already Living Phenomenally Since Intent Is Part Of The Achievement.

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.

In Order To Be Profoundly Dishonest, A Person Must Have One Of Two Qualities: Either He Is Unscrupulously Ambitious, Or He Is Unswervingly Egocentric.

African American

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.

Every Day Offers You 10,000 Reasons To Cry, But If You Can Find Just One Reason To Laugh Then You Will Be All Right.

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.

Don't Let Anybody Raise You. You've Been Raised.

It Is Very Dangerous To Make A Person Larger Than Life Because, Then, Young Men And Women Are Tempted To Believe, Well, If He Was That Great, He's Inaccessible, And I Can Never Try To Be That Or Emulate That Or Achieve That.

I Can Be Changed By What Happens To Me. But I Refuse To Be Reduced By It.

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.

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

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

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

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

You May Be Pretty Or Plain, Heavy Or Thin, Gay Or Straight, Poor Or Rich. But Remember This: In An Election, Every Voice Is Equally Powerful -- Don't Underestimate Your Vote. Voting Is The Great Equalizer.

I Am Always Talking About The Human Condition And About American Society In Particular: What It Is Like To Be Human, What Makes Us Weep, What Makes Us Fall And Stumble And Somehow Rise And Go On From Darkness Into Darkness And That Darkness Carpeted.

The Problem I Have With Haters Is That They See My Glory, But They Don't Know My Story.

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.

In Order To Be Profoundly Dishonest, A Person Must Have One Of Two Qualities: Either He Is Unscrupulously Ambitious, Or He Is Unswervingly Egocentric.

African American

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.

The Happy Heart Runs With The River, Floats On The Air, Lifts To The Music, Soars With The Eagle, Hopes With The Prayer.

Each Person Deserves A Day Away In Which No Problems Are Confronted, No Solutions Searched For.

That's The Biggest Gift I Can Give Anybody: 'wake Up, Be Aware Of Who You Are, What You're Doing And What You Can Do To Prevent Yourself From Becoming Ill.'

You Might Encounter Defeats But You Must Never Be Defeated... Love A Lot. Laugh A Lot At The Silliest Things And Be Very Serious... Love Life.

Women Should Be Tough, Tender, Laugh As Much As Possible, And Live Long Lives. The Struggle For Equality Continues Unabated, And The Woman Warrior Who Is Armed With Wit And Courage Will Be Among The First To Celebrate Victory.

I've Had Rainbows In My Clouds.

Every Person Needs To Take One Day Away. A Day In Which One Consciously Separates The Past From The Future.

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

A Rose By Any Other Name May Smell As Sweet, But A Woman Called By A Devaluing Name Will Only Be Weakened By The Misnomer.

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.

There's Racism And Sexism And Ageism And All Sorts Of Idiocies. But Bad News Is Not News. We've Had Bad News As A Species For A Long Time. We've Had Slavery And Human Sacrifice And The Holocaust And Brutalities Of Such Measure.

I Work Very Hard, And I Play Very Hard. I'm Grateful For Life. And I Live It - I Believe Life Loves The Liver Of It. I Live It.

The Real Difficulty Is To Overcome How You Think About Yourself. If We Don't Have That We Never Grow, We Never Learn, And Sure As Hell We Should Never Teach.

I Thought If I Could Face The Worst Danger Voluntarily, And Triumph, I Would Forever Have Power Over It.

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

Everyone Grows Old But Not Everyone Grows Up.

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.

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.

Success Is Loving Life And Daring To Live It.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

If You Are Going Down A Road And Don't Like What's In Front Of You, And Look Behind You And Don't Like What You See, Get Off The Road. Create A New Path!

Positive Attitude

I Encourage Courtesy. To Accept Nothing Less Than Courtesy, And To Give Nothing Less Than Courtesy.

Everything In The Universe Has A Rhythm, Everything Dances.

Talent Is Like Electricity. We Don't Understand Electricity. We Use It.

Listen To Some Good Poetry. You See? It Keeps Us From Thinking We Are Only What Our Blatant Appetites Describe Us As.

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.

Hoping For The Best

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.

All Of Childhood's Unanswered Questions Must Finally Be Passed Back To The Town And Answered There. Heroes And Bogey Men, Values And Dislikes, Are First Encountered And Labeled In That Early Environment. In Later Years They Change Faces, Places And Maybe Races, Tactics, Intensities And Goals, But Beneath Those Penetrable Masks They Wear Forever The Stocking-capped Faces Of Childhood.

There Are Those Who Say That Poets Should Use Her And His Art To Change The World. I'd Agree With That, But I Think Everybody Should Do That. I Think The Chef And The Baker And The Candlestick Maker - I Think Everybody Should Be Hoping To Make It A Better World.

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

One Isn't Necessarily Born With Courage, But One Is Born With Potential.

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.

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Liberty Hyde Bailey

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