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

-Maya Angelou

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The Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou

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

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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.

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.

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

Whining Is Just Unbecoming.

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

I Think That That's The Wisest Thing - To Prevent Illness Before We Try To Cure Something.

I'm Young As Morning And Fresh As Dew. Everybody Loves Me And So Do You.

Believe In Yourself

If You Happen To Fall In Love With Someone In Another Race, It's More Difficult, Because You Have To Translate Yourself.

Falling In Love

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

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

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.'

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.

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.

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

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.

Language. I Loved It. And For A Long Time I Would Think Of Myself, Of My Whole Body, As An Ear.

The Sisters And Brothers That You Meet Give You The Materials Which Your Character Uses To Build Itself. It Is Said That Some People Are Born Great, Others Achieve It, Some Have It Thrust Upon Them. In Truth, The Ways In Which Your Character Is Built Have To Do With All Three Of Those. Those Around You, Those You Choose, And Those Who Choose You.

I Keep Hitting The Escape Button But I Am Still Here!

You Can't Really Know Where You Are Going Until You Know Where You Have Been.

Where You Are Going

You Rose Into My Life Like A Promised Sunrise, Brightening My Days With The Light In Your Eyes. I've Never Been So Strong. Now I'm Where I Belong.

Someone Was Hurt Before You, Wronged Before You, Hungry Before You, Frightened Before You, Beaten Before You, Humiliated Before You, Raped Before You... Yet, Someone Survived... You Can Do Anything You Choose To Do.

To Those Who Have Given Up On Love: I Say, "trust Life A Little Bit.

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.

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

I Try To Live What I Consider A "poetic Existence." That Means I Take Responsibility For The Air I Breathe And The Space I Take Up. I Try To Be Immediate, To Be Totally Present For All My Work.

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.

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

We Need Joy As We Need Air. We Need Love As We Need Water. We Need Each Other As We Need The Earth We Share.

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

When You Know Better You Do Better.

Human Beings Love Poetry. They Don't Even Know It Sometimes... Whether They're The Songs Of Bono, Or The Songs Of Justin Bieber... They're Listening To Poetry.

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.

You Think You May Not Be Heard. Speak Anyway.

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

All Great Achievements Require Time.

You Can't Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have.

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

Always In The Black Spirituals There's That Promise That Things Are Going To Be Better, By And By.

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

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

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'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.

Step Off The Road. Build Yourself A Brand New Path.

He Thrived With Passion And Compassion, Humor And Style. We Had Him Whether We Know Who He Was Or Did Not Know, He Was Ours And We Were His.

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.

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

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In So Many Ways, Segregation Shaped Me, And Education Liberated Me.

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.

Depending On Who I Am Talking About Or Who's Talking Through Me - If The Person Is A Kind Of Hip-hop, Or Rhythm And Blues Person, Or If The Person Is A Kind Of Old-fashion Gothic, Meaning Gothic Attitude, Then That Will Determine What Form The Poem Will Take.

Music Was My Refuge. I Could Crawl Into The Space Between The Notes And Curl My Back To Loneliness.

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.

The Only Way You Can Be A Mark Is If You Want Something For Nothing. If You're Greedy, You're Set Up.

Without Courage We Cannot Practice Any Other Virtue With Consistency.

My Greatest Blessing Has Been The Birth Of My Son. My Next Greatest Blessing Has Been My Ability To Turn People Into Children Of Mine.

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 Want To Be A Good Human Being. I'm Doing My Best, And I'm Working At It.

I Think Music Is One Of The Hero/sheroes Of The African-american Existence.

African American

You Forgive Yourself For Every Failure Because You Are Trying To Do The Right Thing. God Knows That And You Know It. Nobody Else May Know It.

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.

Education Helps One Case Cease Being Intimidated By Strange Situations.

I Know That I've Been Guided By God. I Am Obedient.

A Joyful Spirit Is Evidence Of A Grateful Heart.

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

Past Present Future

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.

When Things Were Very Bad His Soul Just Crawled Behind His Heart And Curled Up And Went To Sleep

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

I Want To Thank You, Lord, For Life And All That's In It. Thank You For The Day And For The Hour, And The Minute.

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

Making A Difference

We Can See, From California To New York, From Maine To Florida, Seattle To New Mexico - Everywhere There Are Women's Groups. Everywhere There Are Women Who Have Gotten Together To Examine Global Warming, And Women Who Have Gotten Together To Prepare Each Other For Single Parenting - There Are Women Who Have Come Together To Be Supportive To Those Whose Mates Are In Prison, Male Or Female, Partners Are In Prison. All Sorts Of Gatherings Of Women. I Mean, I'm Just Celebrating My 80th Year On This Planet, And I Look Back 50 Years Ago And There Was Nothing Like That.

We Really Are 15 Countries, And It's Remarkable That Each Of Us Thinks We Represent The Real America. The Midwesterner In Kansas, The Black American In Durham - Both Are Certain They Are The Real American.

The Plague Of Racism Is Insidious, Entering Into Our Minds As Smoothly And Quietly And Invisibly As Floating Airborne Microbes Enter Into Our Bodies To Find Lifelong Purchase In Our Bloodstreams.

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

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

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

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When We Decide To Be Happy We Accept The Responsibility To Bring Happiness To Someone Else. Some Decide That Happiness And Glee Are The Same Thing, They Are Not. When We Choose Happiness We Accept The Responsibility To Lighten The Load Of Someone Else And To Be A Light On The Path To Another Who May Be Walking In Darkness.

Life Loves The Person Who Dares To Live It.

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

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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.

That's What You Want To Do? Then Nothing Beats A Trial But A Failure. Give It Everything You've Got. I've Told You Many Times, 'cant Do Is Like Dont Care.' Neither Of Them Have A Home.

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.

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

I Long For The Time When All Human History Is Taught As One History, Because It Really Is.

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

Alone, All Alone Nobody, But Nobody Can Make It Out Here Alone.

I Became The Kind Of Parent My Mother Was To Me.

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

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.

As A Nurse, We Have The Opportunity To Heal The Heart, Mind, Soul And Body Of Our Patients, Their Families And Ourselves. They May Not Remember Your Name But They Will Never Forget The Way You Made Them Feel.

If You Will Have A Person Enslaved, The First Thing You Must Do Is Convince Yourself That The Person Is Subhuman. The Second Thing You Have To Do Is Convince Your Allies So You'll Have Some Help, And The Third And Probably Unkindest Cut Of All Is To Convince That Person That He Or She Is Subhuman And Deserves It.

Be Present In All Things And Thankful For All Things.

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

You Can See In Others What They Don't See In Themselves And What The World Doesn't See In Them.

We Agreed That Great Men And Women Should Be Forced To Live As Long As Possible. The Reverence They Enjoyed Was A Life Sentence, Which They Could Neither Revoke Nor Modify.

I Was Raped When I Was Very Young. I Told My Brother The Name Of The Person Who Had Done It. Within A Few Days The Man Was Killed. In My Child's Mind--seven And A Half Years Old--i Thought My Voice Had Killed Him. So I Stopped Talking For Five Years.

Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike, And What Is True Anywhere Is True Everywhere, Yet I Encourage Travel To As Many Destinations As Possible For The Sake Of Education As Well As Pleasure.

All Of Us Knows, Not What Is Expedient, Not What Is Going To Make Us Popular, Not What The Policy Is, Or The Company Policy - But In Truth Each Of Us Knows What Is The Right Thing To Do. And That's How I Am Guided.

Therefore We Pledge To Bind Ourselves To One Another, To Embrace Our Lowliest, To Keep Company With Our Loneliest, To Educate Our Illiterate, To Feed Our Starving, To Clothe Our Ragged, To Do All Good Things, Knowing That We Are More Than Keepers Of Our Brothers And Sisters. We Are Our Brothers And Sisters

Love Is A Condition So Powerful; It May Be That Which Pulls The Stars In The Firmament. It May Be That Which Pushes And Urges The Blood In The Veins. Courage: You Have To Have Courage To Love Somebody Because You Risk Everything-ever Ything.

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

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.

The Holy Spirit Upon My Left Leads My Feet Without Ceasing Into The Camp Of The Righteous And Into The Tents Of The Free.

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

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.

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

Tell The Truth And Not The Facts.

Telling The Truth

We Need To Haunt The House Of History And Listen Anew To The Ancestors' Wisdom.

Words Of Wisdom

The Desire To Reach For The Stars Is Ambitious. The Desire To Reach Hearts Is Wise.

Early On, I Was So Impressed With Charles Dickens. I Grew Up In The South, In A Little Village In Arkansas, And The Whites In My Town Were Really Mean, And Rude. Dickens, I Could Tell, Wouldn't Be A Man Who Would Curse Me Out And Talk To Me Rudely.

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

When I Passed Forty I Dropped Pretense, 'cause Men Like Women Who Got Some Sense.

The Truth Will Lead Me To All.

Telling The Truth

I Think All Poems Are Commissioned. They Just Come To Me Without Somebody Outside Commissioning Them. The Idea Comes And I Will Live With Them 'til I Get It As Close To What I Mean. I've Never Been Totally Satisfied. I've Come Close A Few Times.

You May Encounter Many Defeats, But You Must Not Be Defeated. In Fact, The Encountering May Be The Very Experience Which Creates The Vitality And The Power To Endure.

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.

I Became The Kind Of Parent My Mother Was To Me.

My Pride Had Been Starched By A Family Who Assumed Unlimited Authority In Its Own Affairs.

The Desire To Reach Hearts Is Wise

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.

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes.

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

Hope Is Born Again In The Faces Of Children.

You Have To Deal With What You Encounter. But You Must Not Be Reduced. And So A Way Not To Be Reduced Is Don't Whine! Don't Let The Incidents Which Take Place In Life Bring You Low.

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

I Am Convinced That Words Are Things, And We Simply Don't Have The Machinery To Measure What They Are. I Believe That Words Are Tangible Things.

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

I'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 Buddy: It's Serious Business.

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

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

We Spend Precious Hours Fearing The Inevitable. It Would Be Wise To Use That Time Adoring Our Families, Cherishing Our Friends And Living Our Lives.

I Want To Be Representative Of My Race-the Human Race. I Have A Chance To Show How Kind We Can Be, How Intelligent And Generous We Can Be.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

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

There Is No Place Where God Is Not.

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

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.

Difficult Is A Far Cry From Impossible. The Distance Between These Two Lies Hope. Hope And Fear Cannot Occupy The Same Space At The Same Time. Invite One To Stay.

It's One Of The Greatest Gifts You Can Give Yourself, To Forgive. Forgive Everybody.

I'm Considered Wise, And Sometimes I See Myself As Knowing. Most Of The Time, I See Myself As Wanting To Know. And I See Myself As A Very Interested Person. I've Never Been Bored In My Life.

You May Encounter Many Defeats, But You Must Not Be Defeated. In Fact, It May Be Necessary To Encounter The Defeats, So You Can Know Who You Are, What You Can Rise From, How You Can Still Come Out Of It.

I Have Enough Of Life In Me To Make Somebody Jealous Enough To Want To Knock Me Down. I Have So Much Courage In Me That I Have The Effrontery, The Incredible Gall To Stand Up. That's It. That's How You Get To Know Who You Are.

I’ve Got A Magic Charm That I Keep Up My Sleeve, I Can Walk The Ocean Floor And Never Have To Breathe.

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.

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

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

A Mother's Love Liberates.

Hoping For The Best, Prepared For The Worst, And Unsurprised By Anything In Between.

Personal Growth

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.

I've Learned That People Will Forget What You Said, People Will Forget What You Did, But People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

It Is This Belief In A Power Larger Than Myself And Other Than Myself Which Allows Me To Venture Into The Unknown And Even The Unknowable.

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

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

Determine To Live Life With Flair And Laughter.

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.

Having Courage Does Not Mean That We Are Unafraid. Having Courage And Showing Courage Mean We Face Our Fears. We Are Able To Say, 'i Have Fallen, But I Will Get Up.'

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

My Pride Had Been Starched By A Family Who Assumed Unlimited Authority In Its Own Affairs.

I Always Felt, If I Can Get To A Library, I'll Be Ok.

But A Caged Bird Stands On The Grave Of Dreams.

When I Write, I Tend To Twist My Hair. Something For My Small Mind To Do, I Guess.

One Isn't Necessarily Born With Courage, But One Is Born With Potential. Without Courage, We Cannot Practice Any Other Virtue With Consistency. We Can't Be Kind, True, Merciful, Generous, Or Honest.

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?

Every Person Needs To Take One Day Away. A Day In Which One Consciously Separates The Past From The Future. Jobs, Family, Employers, And Friends Can Exist One Day Without Any One Of Us, And If Our Egos Permit Us To Confess, They Could Exist Eternally In Our Absence. Each Person Deserves A Day Away In Which No Problems Are Confronted, No Solutions Searched For. Each Of Us Needs To Withdraw From The Cares Which Will Not Withdraw From Us.

All Great Acheivements Require Time.

A Great Soul Serves Everyone All The Time. A Great Soul Never Dies. It Brings Us Together Again And Again.

'god Put The Rainbow In The Clouds, Not Just In The Sky'... It Is Wise To Realize We Already Have Rainbows In Our Clouds, Or We Wouldn't Be Here. If The Rainbow Is In The Clouds, Then In The Worst Of Time, There Is The Possibility Of Seeing Hope... We Can Say 'i Can Be A Rainbow In The Cloud For Someone Yet To Be.' That May Be Our Calling.

Let Choice Whisper In Your Ear And Love Murmur In Your Heart. Be Ready. Here Comes Life.

I Live In An Atmosphere Of Music.

The Idea Is To Write It So That People Hear It And It Slides Through The Brain And Goes Straight To The Heart.

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.

Phenomenal Woman

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.

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

Life Sometimes Gives You A Second Chance.

I Try To See Every Day As A Celebration.

Love Is That Condition In The Human Spirit So Profound That It Allows Me To Survive, And Better Than That, To Thrive With Passion, Compassion, And Style.

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.

Jealousy In Romance Is Like Salt In Food. A Little Can Enhance The Savor, But Too Much Can Spoil The Pleasure And, Under Certain Circumstances, Can Be Life-threatening.

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 I'm Here, I'll Be Trying To Be A Better Human Being, A Better Writer, A Better Friend And A Better Beloved.

My Life Has Been Long, And Believing That Life Loves The Liver Of It, I Have Dared To Try Many Things, Sometimes Trembling, But Daring Still.

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

Knowing Nothing

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

We All Should Know That Diversity Makes For A Rich Tapestry, And We Must Understand That All The Threads Of The Tapestry Are Equal In Value No Matter What Their Color.

There's A World Of Difference Between Truth And Facts. Facts Can Obscure The Truth.

I Am A Very Religious Person, So It Is The Presence Of God, The Constant Unwavering, Unrelenting Presence Of God Which Continues To Help Me To Keep A Character Which I Am Proud To Show.

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.

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

Life Is Going To Give You Just What You Put In It. Put Your Whole Heart In Everything You Do, And Pray, Then You Can Wait.

Don't Face The Day Until You've Faced God.

It's Hard Because People Think They Have Something To Lose And The Truth Is They Have Everything To Gain In Trying To Love Somebody.

Words Mean More Than What Is Set Down On Paper. It Takes The Human Voice To Infuse Them With Deeper Meaning.

Therefore We Pledge To Bind Ourselves To One Another, To Embrace Our Lowliest, To Keep Company With Our Loneliest, To Educate Our Illiterate, To Feed Our Starving, To Clothe Our Ragged, To Do All Good Things, Knowing That We Are More Than Keepers Of Our Brothers And Sisters. We Are Our Brothers And Sisters

I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave

African American

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