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

-Maya Angelou

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The Whites Were Really

Maya Angelou

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

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I Think We Have Systematically And Critically Harmed Ourselves And Many Young People By Advising Them Not To Try Things.

My Mother Said I Must Always Be Intolerant Of Ignorance But Understanding Of Illiteracy. That Some People, Unable To Go To School, Were More Educated And More Intelligent Than College Professors.

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Education Is A Process That Goes On 'til Death. The Moment You See Someone Who Knows She Has Found The One True Way, And Can Call All The Others False, Then You Know You're In The Company Of An Ignoramus.

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

I Would Welcome A Friendship With Lynne Hinton. I Would Welcome An Invitation To Sit Down At Her Table, But Mostly I Would Welcome Her Next Book.

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I Will Write On The Pages Of History What I Want Them To Say. I Will Be Myself. I Will Speak My Own Name.

You Can't Forgive Without Loving. And I Don't Mean Sentimentality. I Don't Mean Mush. I Mean Having Enough Courage To Stand Up And Say, 'i Forgive. I'm Finished With It.'

The Hope, The Hope That Lives In The Breast Of The Black American, Is Just So Tremendous That It Overwhelms Me Sometimes.

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.

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Love Is Many Things. It Is Varied. One Thing Love Is Not, Is Unsure.

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

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

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

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We Grow Despite The Horror That We Feed Upon Our Own Tomorrow. We Grow.

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

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You May Not Remember What A Person Said To You, You May Not Remember What A Person Did To You, But You Will Never Forget How A Person Made You Feel!

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.

The Nice Thing About Hope Is That You Can Give It To Someone Else, Someone Who Needs It Even More Than You Do, And You Will Find You Have Not Given Yours Away At All.

If One Is Lucky, A Solitary Fantasy Can Totally Transform One Million Realities.

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

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.

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.

Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.

I Look At Some Of The Great Novelists, And I Think The Reason They Are Great Is That They're Telling The Truth. The Fact Is They're Using Made-up Names, Made-up People, Made-up Places, And Made-up Times, But They're Telling The Truth About The Human Being- What We Are Capable Of, What Makes Us Lose, Laugh, Weep, Fall Down, And Gnash Our Teeth And Wring Our Hands And Kill Each Other And Love Each Other.

I Think That Each Of Us Is So Much Alike, And Yet At The Same Time We Are So Different, And I Have A Feeling That If You Encountered Difficulty, And I With My Age Encountered The Same Difficulty, I Would Respond One Way, And You Would Respond Another. Neither Would Be Right Or Wrong. It's Just That Each Of Us Is Courageous, And That's What I Encourage, Courage, And The Courage To See, And The Courage To Say To Oneself What One Has Seen. Don't Be In Denial.

On The Day Of Your Birth, The Creator Filled Countless Storehouses, Set Aside For Your Use And Yours Alone.

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?

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

I Am Grateful To Have Been Loved And To Be Loved Now And To Be Able To Love, Because That Liberates. Love Liberates. It Doesn't Just Hold - That's Ego. Love Liberates. It Doesn't Bind. Love Says, 'i Love You. I Love You If You're In China. I Love You If You're Across Town. I Love You If You're In Harlem. I Love You. I Would Like To Be Near You. I'd Like To Have Your Arms Around Me. I'd Like To Hear Your Voice In My Ear. But That's Not Possible Now, So I Love You. Go.'

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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.

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I Am Serious, So I Laugh A Lot. You Need To Laugh. You Don't Laugh Enough. I Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Laugh.

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.

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

I Love To See A Young Girl Go Out And Grab The World By The Lapels.

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

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It Is Impossible To Struggle For Civil Rights, Equal Rights For Blacks, Without Including Whites. Because Equal Rights, Fair Play, Justice, Are All Like The Air: We All Have It, Or None Of Us Has It. That Is The Truth Of It.

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No One Has Ever Become Poor From Giving.

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I've Learned That Every Day You Should Reach Out And Touch Someone. People Love A Warm Hug, Or Just A Friendly Pat On The Back.

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

We Need Language To Tell Us Who We Are, How We Feel, What We're Capable Of- To Explain The Pains And Glory Of Our Existence.

Being Physically Close To Extreme Power Causes One To Experience A Giddiness, An Intoxication.

I've Learned That Every Day You Should Reach Out And Touch Someone. People Love A Warm Hug, Or Just A Friendly Pat On The Back.

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A Bizarre Sensation Pervades A Relationship Of Pretense. No Truth Seems True.

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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.

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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.

I Believe Talent Is Like Electricity. We Don't Understand Electricity. We Use It. You Can Plug Into It And Light Up A Lamp, Keep A Heart Pump Going, Light A Cathedral, Or You Can Electrocute A Person With It. Electricity Will Do All That. It Makes No Judgment. I Think Talent Is Like That. I Believe Every Person Is Born With Talent.

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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.

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.

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

Some Think, "if I Marry This Guy Who's Two Inches Taller Than I Am And Who Has A Nice Bank Account, I Won't Die. If I Buy Six Cars, I Won't Die. If I Hate Jews, I Won't Die. If I Hate Homosexuals, I Won't Die." They Think They Will Increase Their Life By Shunting Misery Onto Somebody Else, But It's Just The Opposite.

It's A Wonderful Thing To Know That There Is Something To Know There Is Something Greater Than I Am, And That Is God Itself.

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

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.

Without Courage You Cannot Practice Any Of The Other Virtues.

But From A Distance. I Would Have Left You Whole And Wholly For The Delectation Of Those Who Wanted More And Cared Less.

To Those Who Are Given Much, Much Is Expected.

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.

Each Time A Dancer Moves Devoutly Or A Composer Faithfully Searches The Silence For The Veiled Melodies, Eternity Is Engaged.

Blacks Concede That Hurrawing, Jibing, Jiving, Signifying, Disrespecting, Cursing, Even Outright Insults Might Be Acceptable Under Particular Conditions, But Aspersions Cast Against One's Family Call For Immediate Attack.

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

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

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.

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.

When I'm Writing, I Write. And Then It's As If The Muse Is Convinced That I'm Serious And Says, 'okay. Okay. I'll Come.'

I Keep On Dying, Because I Love To Live

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."

Facts Can Obscure The Truth.

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.

Elimination Of Illiteracy Is As Serious An Issue To Our History As The Abolition Of Slavery.

Abolition Of Slavery

On This Platform Of Peace, We Can Create A Language To Translate Ourselves To Ourselves And To Each Other.

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?

Nothing Will Work Unless You Do.

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

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."

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

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

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.

Would You Deny Your Son Or Your Daughter The Ecstasy Of Finding Someone To Love?

Finding Someone

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.

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

Past Present Future

Black Women Have Not Historically Stood In The Pulpit, But That Doesn't Undermine The Fact That They Built The Churches And Maintain The Pulpits.

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

We Cannot Change The Past, But We Can Change Our Attitude Toward It. Uproot Guilt And Plant Forgiveness. Tear Out Arrogance And Seed Humility. Exchange Love For Hate - Thereby, Making The Present Comfortable And The Future Promising.

We Are Missing Michael. But We Do Know We Had Him, And We Are The World.

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

Living A Life Is Like Constructing A Building: If You Start Wrong, You'll End Wrong.

I Find In My Poetry And Prose The Rhythms And Imagery Of The Best - I Mean, When I'm At My Best - Of The Good Southern Black Preachers. The Lyricism Of The Spirituals And The Directness Of Gospel Songs And The Mystery Of Blues Are In My Music Or In My Poetry And Prose, Or I Missed Everything.

If You're A Human Being, You Can Attempt To Do What Other Human Beings Have Done. We Don't Understand Talent Any More Than We Understand Electricity.

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

The Real Difficulty Is To Overcome How You Think About Yourself.

At Our Best, We Are All Teachers

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

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

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.

Sisterhood Means If You Happen To Be In Burma And I Happen To Be In San Diego And I'm Married To Someone Who Is Very Jealous And You're Married To Somebody Who Is Very Possessive, If You Call Me In The Middle Of The Night, I Have To Come.

I Believe That Every Person Is Born With Talent.

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?

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

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

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.

Since Time Is The One Immaterial Object Which We Cannot Influence Neither Speed Up Nor Slow Down Add To Nor Diminish It Is An Imponderably Valuable Gift.

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

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

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

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

Believe In Yourself

Money And Power Can Liberate Only If They Are Used To Do So. They Can Imprison And Inhibit More Finally Than Barred Windows And Iron Chains.

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

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

As Far As I Knew White Women Were Never Lonely, Except In Books. White Men Adored Them, Black Men Desired Them And Black Women Worked For Them.

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.

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.

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.

You Don't Have To Tell Everything You Know, But Let What You Do Say Be The Truth As You Understand It.

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

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.

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!

To Be Human Is To Be Challenged To Be More Divine. Not Even To Try To Meet Such A Challenge Is The Biggest Defeat Imaginable.

Don't Get Older Just To Get Wiser. If You Get Older, You Will Be Wiser, I Believe That - If You Dare. But Get Older Because It's Fun!

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

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

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.

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.

It's In The Click Of My Heels, The Bend Of My Hair, The Palm Of My Hand, The Need Of My Care, 'cause I'm A Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, That's Me.

I Have Respect For The Past, But I'm A Person Of The Moment.

I Will Look After You And I Will Look After Anybody You Say Needs To Be Looked After, Any Way You Say. I Am Here. I Brought My Whole Self To You. I Am Your Mother.

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

Life Sometimes Gives You A Second Chance.

I Dreamt We Walked Together Along The Shore. We Made Satisfying Small Talk And Laughed. This Morning I Found Sand In My Shoe And A Seashell In My Pocket. Was I Only Dreaming?

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

I Think We Have Systematically And Critically Harmed Ourselves And Many Young People By Advising Them Not To Try Things.

Whining Is Not Only Graceless, But It Can Be Dangerous. It Can Alert A Brute That A Victim Is In The Neighborhood.

I Love A Hebrew National Hot Dog With An Ice-cold Corona - No Lime. If The Phone Rings, I Won't Answer Until I'm Done.

History, Despite Its Wrenching Pain, Cannot Be Unlived, But If Faced With Courage, Need Not Be Lived Again.

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.

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.

I Know, That Since Life Is Our Most Precious Gift, And As Far As We Can Be Absolutely Certain, It's Given To Us To Live But Once, Let Us So Live We Will Not Regret Years Of Useless Virtue, And Inertia, And Timidity, And Ignorance, And In Our Last Moments We Can Say: 'all My Life, All My Conscious Energies, Have Been Dedicated To The Most Noble Cause In The World, The Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit - Beginning With My Own'.

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.

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

Living Well Is An Art That Can Be Developed.

Every Journey Begins With A Single Step.

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!

I'm Convinced Of This: Good Done Anywhere Is Good Done Everywhere. For A Change, Start By Speaking To People Rather Than Walking By Them Like They're Stones That Don't Matter. As Long As You're Breathing, It's Never Too Late To Do Some Good.

If We Lose Love And Self Respect For Each Other, This Is How We Finally Die.

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.

We Are Only As Blind As We Want To Be.

I Read The Bible To Myself; I'll Take Any Translation, Any Edition, And Read It Aloud, Just To Hear The Language, Hear The Rhythm, And Remind Myself How Beautiful English Is.

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

We Can Learn To See Each Other And See Ourselves In Each Other And Recognize That Human Beings Are More Alike Than We Are Unalike.

In Order To Win, We Pay With Energy And Effort And Discipline. If We Lose, We Pay In Disappointment, Discontent, And Lack Of Fulfillment.

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