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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.

-Maya Angelou

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Oh, The Holiness Of

Maya Angelou

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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.

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The Sadness Of The Women's Movement Is That They Don't Allow The Necessity Of Love. See, I Don't Personally Trust Any Revolution Where Love Is Not Allowed.

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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.

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

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.

My Hope Is That We Develop Enough Courage To Develop Courage. To Try To Have, Try To Learn To Treat Each Other Fairly, With Generosity And Kindness.

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

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I Wasn't A Pretty Girl. I Was Six Feet Tall At 15, You Know.

People Are Too Busy Putting Things Under Microscopes And So Forth. Creativity Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts.

There Is No Greater Agony Than Bearing An Untold Story Inside You.

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Whining Is Just Unbecoming.

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

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

Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies.

Modesty Is A Learned Affectation. It's No Good. Humility Is Great, Because Humility Says, 'there Was Someone Before Me. I'm Following In Somebody's Footsteps.'

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The Woman Who Survives Intact And Happy Must Be At Once Tender And Tough.

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

Telling The Truth

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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.

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.

I Would Be A Liar, A Hypocrite, Or A Fool - And I'm Not Any Of Those - To Say That I Don't Write For The Reader. I Do. But For The Reader Who Hears, Who Really Will Work At It, Going Behind What I Seem To Say. So I Write For Myself And That Reader Who Will Pay The Dues.

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If I Wanted To Write, I Had To Be Willing To Develop A Kind Of Concentration Found Mostly In People Awaiting Execution. I Had To Learn Technique And Surrender My Ignorance.

Determine To Live Life With Flair And Laughter.

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.

One Isn't Born With Courage. One Develops It By Doing Small Courageous Things.

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

When We Cast Our Bread Upon The Waters We Can Presume That Someone Downstream Whose Face We Will Never Know Will Benefit From Our Action, As We Who Are Downstream From Another Will Profit From The Grantor's Gift.

A Person Is The Product Of Their Dreams. So Make Sure To Dream Great Dreams. And Then Try To Live Your Dream.

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

I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave

African American

Loving Someone Liberates The Lover As Well As The Beloved. And That Kind Of Love Comes With Age.

Dare To Let Your Dreams Reach Beyond You...

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. And Then That's How You Get To Know Yourself. You Say, Hmm, I Can Get Up!

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. Few, If Any, Survive Their Teens. Most Surrender To The Vague But Murderous Pressure Of Adult Conformity. It Becomes Easier To Die And Avoid Conflict Than To Maintain A Constant Battle With The Superior Forces Of Maturity.

I Thought I'm Going To Die. So Why Can't I Do Everything? And What Is This Idea That I Worked All Day Yesterday, So I'm Tired Today? I've Never Believed That.i Thought, "just Suppose I Could Choreograph A Ballet." And I Did It. Suppose I Could Teach Dance At The Theater In Cleveland. And I Did It. Suppose I Could Sing For A Living - That I Could Stop These Two Jobs As A Waitress And A Salesperson.

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.

Had I Not Had My Grandmother, Who Dared To Be My Rainbow In The Clouds, I Would Have Been Just Another Sexually Abused Barefoot Black Girl On The Roads Of Arkansas.

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

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

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.

Out Of The Huts Of History's Shame I Rise.

It's Wonderful That Whenever Patsy Cline's Name Is Mentioned, People's Voices Fall And They Become Right Sentimental. And, Rightly So.

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.

The Desire To Reach Hearts Is Wise

Each Of Us Has The Power And Responsibility To Become A Rainbow In The Clouds.

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.

All People In The World - Who Are Not Hermits Or Mutes - Speak Words. They Speak Different Languages, But They Speak Words. They Say, "how Are You" Or "i'm Not Feeling Well" All Over The World. These Common Words - These Common Elements That We Have Between Us - The Writer Has To Take Some Verbs And Nouns And Pronouns And Adjectives And Adverbs And Arrange Them In A Way That Sound Fresh.

My People Couldn't Have Survived Slavery Without Having Hope That It Would Get Better. And There's Some Songs From The 19th And 18th Century That Say [sings], "by And By, By And By, I Will Lay Down, This Heavy Load." And I Mean, So Many Songs That Spoke Of Hope And Understand It Better By And By. Amazing Songs. So That The Slaves, Just Knowing That He, She, Did Not Have The Right Legally To Walk Within One Inch Away From Where The Slave Owner Dictated, And Yet The Same Person, Wrote And Sang With Fervor, "if The Lord Wants Somebody, Here Am I, Send Me." It's Amazing.

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As Long As You're Breathing, It's Never Too Late To Do Some Good.

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

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

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Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

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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.

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

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

You Can Ask Goodness In, Show It How Much You Like It, Make Room For It. And It Says, "oh, I Like This Place, I Think I'll Stay Here." Which Is Why People Go Into One House And Say, "i Want To Take My Shoes Off." At Another House, No Matter How Beautiful It Is, They Might Say, "hmm, I Can't Stay."

I've Learned That You Can Tell A Lot About A Person By The Way He/she Handles These Three Things: A Rainy Day, Lost Luggage And Tangled Christmas Tree Lights. I've Learned That Making A 'living' Is Not The Same Thing As 'making A Life'. I've Learned That Whenever I Decide Something With An Open Heart, I Usually Make The Right Decision. 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 Some Things Back.

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.

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

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.

Everyone Grows Old But Not Everyone Grows Up.

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.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success. Get A Little Success, And Then Just Get A Little More.

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.

Oh, Black Known And Unknown Poets, How Often Have Your Auctioned Pains Sustained Us? Who Will Compute The Lonely Nights Made Less Lonely By Your Songs, Or By The Empty Pots Made Less Tragic By Your Tales? If We Were A People Much Given To Revealing Secrets, We Might Raise Monuments And Sacrifice To The Memories Of Our Poets, But Slavery Cured Us Of That Weakness.

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.

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?

Everybody In The World Wants The Same Thing...to Be Needed...a Job That He/she Can Do Well...to Love Somebody...everybody...there's No Mystery.

Mother's Life Flowed Radiant. Flourescent-tipped Waves On Incoming Tides.

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.

Everybody Born Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory.

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

The Thorn From The Bush One Has Planted, Nourished And Pruned Pricks More Deeply And Draws More Blood.

In Stamps The Segregation Was So Complete That Most Black Children Didn't Really, Absolutely Know What Whites Looked Like.

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

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.

People Feel Guilty. And Guilt Is Stymieing. Guilt Immobilizes. Guilt Closes The Air Ducts And The Veins, And Makes People Ignorant.

If I Have A Monument In This World, It Is My Son.

Have A Purpose To Your Life: Purpose Does Not Mean Having A Job...you Can Have A Job And Still Be Unfulfilled.

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.

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?"

Impossible Things

I Admire People Who Dare To Take The Language, English, And Understand It And Understand The Melody.

I Would Ask Every Man And Every Woman Who's Had The Blessing Of Having Children, 'would You Deny Your Son Or Your Daughter The Ecstasy Of Finding Someone To Love?' To Love Someone Takes A Lot Of Courage. So How Much More Is One Challenged When The Love Is Of The Same Sex And The Laws Say, 'i Forbid You From Loving This Person'?

If You Were The President Of The United States Or The Queen Of England - You Couldn't Have A Person Who Would Be More Protective Than My Mother Was For Me. Which Meant Really That I Could Dare To Do All Sorts Of Things.

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

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