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The Needs Of A Society Determine Its Ethics, And In The Black American Ghettos The Hero Is That Man Who Is Offered Only The Crumbs From His Country's Table But By Ingenuity And Courage Is Able To Take For Himself A Lucullan Feast. Hence The Janitor Who Lives In One Room But Sports A Robin's-egg-blue Cadillac Is Not Laughed At But Admired, And The Domestic Who Buys Forty-dollar Shoes Is Not Criticized But Is Appreciated. We Know That They Have Put To Use Their Full Mental And Physical Powers. Each Single Gain Feeds Into The Gains Of The Body Collective.

-Maya Angelou

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The Needs Of A

Maya Angelou

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The Needs Of A Society Determine Its Ethics, And In The Black American Ghettos The Hero Is That Man Who Is Offered Only The Crumbs From His Country's Table But By Ingenuity And Courage Is Able To Take For Himself A Lucullan Feast. Hence The Janitor Who Lives In One Room But Sports A Robin's-egg-blue Cadillac Is Not Laughed At But Admired, And The Domestic Who Buys Forty-dollar Shoes Is Not Criticized But Is Appreciated. We Know That They Have Put To Use Their Full Mental And Physical Powers. Each Single Gain Feeds Into The Gains Of The Body Collective.

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Positive Attitude

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

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

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Falling In Love

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The Desire To Reach Hearts Is Wise

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

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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.

I Know For Sure That Love Saves Me And That It Is Here To Save Us All.

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.

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

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

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Without Courage You Can't Practice Any Other Virtue Consistently.

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

You May Not Get What You Paid For, But You Will Pay For What You Get.

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.

Do Not Be Wedded Forever To Fear, Yoked Eternally To Brutishness.

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

By No Amount Of Agile Exercising Of A Wistful Imagination Could My Mother Have Been Called Lenient. Generous She Was; Indulgent Never. Kind, Yes, Permissive, Never. In Her World, People She Accepted Paddled Their Own Canoes, Pulled Their Own Weight, Put Their Own Shoulders To Their Own Plows And Pushed Like Hell.

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.

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.

Tragedy, No Matter How Sad, Becomes Boring To Those Not Caught In Its Addictive Caress.

Sunday, If I'm Lucky, I'll Go To Church Or Listen To Some Good Spiritual Advice On The Television Or On The Radio. I Take Three Or Four Baths To Try To Cleanse Myself, So I'm Fresh For Monday.

Those Who Have Something To Say Accept The Fact That That's Lonely. One Already Knows That There Will Be Adversaries.

Nothing Hurts More Than Realizing They Meant Everything To You, But You Meant Nothing To Them.

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

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.

Don't Let The Incidents Which Take Place In Life Bring You Low. And Certainly Don't Whine. You Can Be Brought Low, That's Ok, But Don't Be Reduced By Them. Just Say, 'that's Life.'

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.

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.

To Those Who Are Given Much, Much Is Expected.

Some People Cannot See A Good Thing When It Is Right Here, Right Now. Others Can Sense A Good Thing Coming When It Is Days, Months, Or Miles Away.

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

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.

Writing And Cookery Are Just Two Different Means Of Communication.

You Dwell In Whitened Castles With Deep And Poisoned Moats And Cannot Hear The Curses Which Fill Your Children's Throats.

Having Courage Does Not Mean We Are Unafraid.

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.

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.

A Woman Who Is Convinced That She Deserves To Accept Only The Best Challenges Herself To Give The Best. Then She Is Living Phenomenally.

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.

The Root Cause Of All The Problems We Have In The World Today Is Ignorance Of Course. But Most, Polarization.

Without Courage You Cannot Practice Any Of The Other Virtues.

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.

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

We Must Create A Climate Where People Agree That Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike. The Only Way To Do That Is Through Education.

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

The Need For Change Bulldozed A Road Down The Center Of My Mind.

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

I Try To See Every Day As A Celebration.

I've Had People Explain To Me What One Of My Poems Meant, And I've Been Surprised That It Means That To Them. If A Person Can Use A Poem Of Mine To Interpret Her Life Or His Life, Good. I Can't Control That. Nor Would I Want To.

I Would Like To Be Known As An Intelligent Woman, A Courageous Woman, A Loving Woman, A Woman Who Teaches By Being.

We Need To Not Be In Denial About What We've Done, What We've Come Through. It Will Help Us If We All Do That.

Without Courage You Can't Practice Any Other Virtue Consistently.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

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.

We Are The Victims Of The World's Most Comprehensive Robbery. Life Demands A Balance. It's All Right If We Do A Little Robbing Now.

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 Could Fall In Love With A Sumo Wrestler If He Told Stories And Made Me Laugh. Obviously, It Would Be Easier If Someone Was African-american And Lived Next Door And Went To The Same Church. Because Then I Wouldn't Have To Translate.

Falling In Love

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.

One Of The Saddest Things In The World Is To See A Cynical Young Person.

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

Personal Growth

We Love And Lose In China, We Weep On England's Moors, And Laugh And Moan In Guinea, And Thrive On Spanish Shores. We Seek Success In Finland, Are Born And Die In Maine. In Minor Ways We Differ, In Major We're The Same.

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.

Self-pity In Its Early Stage Is As Snug As A Feather Mattress. Only When It Hardens Does It Become Uncomfortable.

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.

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.

Just As Hope Rings Through Laughter, It Can Also Shine Through Tears.

I Wouldn't Trade Anything For My Story Now.

When It Looks Like The Sun Isn't Going To Shine Any More, God Puts A Rainbow In The Clouds. Each One Of Us Has The Possibility, The Responsibility, The Probability To Be The Rainbow In The Clouds.

During Bad Circumstances, Which Is The Human Inheritance, You Must Decide Not To Be Reduced. You Have Your Humanity, And You Must Not Allow Anything To Reduce That. We Are Obliged To Know We Are Global Citizens. Disasters Remind Us We Are World Citizens, Whether We Like It Or Not.

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.

Women Been Gittin' Pregnant Ever Since Eve Ate That Apple.

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

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.

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.

Poetry And Music Are The Best At The Highest Level Of The Human Mind. Out Of Poetry, Out Of Their Need For Poetry, Human Beings Have Developed The Idea Of God. And So When We Sing, When We Dance, When We Speak Poetry We Are Speaking Out Of God's Mouth, Each Other Out Of The Music From God's Heart.

Because Of Our Routines We Forget That Life Is An Ongoing Adventure.

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Different Ideas

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

The Intensity With Which Young People Live Demands That They "blank Out" As Often As Possible.

I Believe That Every Person Is Born With Talent.

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.

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

There Are Great Parents Of Small Children - They Keep Their Little Hair In Bows - But Those Parents Are Not Always Good Parents Of Young Adults. As Soon As Their Children Get Up To Some Size, It's "shut Up, Sit Down, You Talk Too Much, Keep Your Distance, I'll Send You To Europe!" My Mom Was A Terrible Parent Of Small Children But A Great Parent Of Young Adults. She'd Talk To Me As If I Had Some Sense.

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.

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

Then The Question Began To Live Under My Blankets: How Did Lesbianism Begin? What Were The Symptoms? The Public Library Gave Information On The Finished Lesbian--and That Woefully Sketchy--but On The Growth Of A Lesbian, There Was Nothing. I Did Discover That The Difference Between Hermaphrodites And Lesbians Was That Hermaphrodites Were "born That Way." It Was Impossible To Determine Whether Lesbians Budded Gradually, Or Burst Into Being With A Suddenness That Dismayed Them As Much As It Repelled Society.

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 Encourage You To Live With Life. Be Courageous, Adventurous. Give Us A Tomorrow, More Than We Deserve.

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

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.

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.

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.

All Great Artists Draw From The Same Resource: The Human Heart, Which Tells Us That We Are All More Alike Than We Are Unalike.

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.

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.

No One Can Take The Place Of A Friend, No One.

God Puts Rainbows In The Clouds So That Each Of Us - In The Dreariest And Most Dreaded Moments - Can See A Possibility Of Hope.

Chasing Rainbows

Poetry Puts Starch In Your Backbone So You Can Stand, So You Can Compose Your Life.

The World Had Taken A Deep Breath And Was Having Doubts About Continuing To Revolve.

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

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.

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.

Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies. I'm Not Cute Or Built To Suit A Fashion Model's Size But When I Start To Tell Them, They Think I'm Telling Lies. I Say, It's In The Reach Of My Arms The Span Of My Hips, The Stride Of My Step, The Curl Of My Lips. I'm A Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, That's Me.

The Future Is Plump With Promise.

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.

There Is No Place Where God Is Not.

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