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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.

-Maya Angelou

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To Be Left Alone

Maya Angelou

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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.

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

Past Present Future

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Everybody Is Worth Everything.

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Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now.

Inspirational Life

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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.

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

Past Present Future

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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.

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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.

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If We Are Bold, Love Strikes Away The Chains Of Fear From Our Souls.

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

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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.

Being A Woman Is Hard Work.

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

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

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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.

Hope Is Born Again In The Faces Of Children.

We Delight In The Beauty Of The Butterfly, But Rarely Admit The Changes It Has Gone Through To Achieve That Beauty.

When We Know Better, We Do Better.

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.

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

Dare To Let Your Dreams Reach Beyond You...

Life Is A Glorious Banquet, A Limitless And Delicious Buffet.

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

Mostly, What I Have Learned So Far About Aging, Despite The Creakiness Of One's Bones And Cragginess Of One's Once-silken Skin, Is This: Do It. By All Means, Do It.

Each One Of Us Has Lived Through Some Devastation, Some Loneliness, Some Weather Superstorm Or Spiritual Superstorm, When We Look At Each Other We Must Say, I Understand. I Understand How You Feel Because I Have Been There Myself. We Must Support Each Other And Empathize With Each Other Because Each Of Us Is More Alike Than We Are Unalike.

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.

Have Enough Courage To Love.

Courage To Love

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

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

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.

Only Equals Make Friends, Every Other Relationship Is Contrived And Off Balance.

We Need Much Less Than We Think We Need.

The Horizon Leans Forward, Offering You Space To Place New Steps Of Change.

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

Precious Jewels

Information Helps You To See That You're Not Alone. That There's Somebody In Mississippi And Somebody In Tokyo Who Have Wept, Who've All Longed And Lost, Who've All Been Happy. So The Library Helps You To See, Not Only That You Are Not Alone, But That You're Not Really Any Different From Everyone Else.

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

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.

The Ache For Home Lives In All Of Us, The Safe Place Where We Can Go As We Are And Not Be Questioned.

Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns All Clean.

Intelligence Always Had A Pornographic Influence On Me.

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.

Look Heavenward And Speak The Word Aloud. Peace. We Look At Our World And Speak The Word Aloud. Peace.

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.

I've Had Rainbows In My Clouds.

What I Try To Do Is Write. I May Write For Two Weeks ‘the Cat Sat On The Mat, That Is That, Not A Rat,’.... And It Might Be Just The Most Boring And Awful Stuff. But I Try. 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.

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At Fifteen Life Had Taught Me Undeniably That Surrender, In Its Place, Was As Honorable As Resistance, Especially If One Had No Choice.

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

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

I'm A Religious Woman. And I Feel I Have Responsibility. I Have No Modesty At All. I'm Even Afraid Of It - It's A Learned Affectation And It's Just Stuck On Me Like Decals. Now I Pray For Humility Because That Comes From Inside Out.

Forgive Yourself - No One Else Will.

Forgive Yourself

There Is A Kind Of Strength That Is Almost Frightening In Black Women. It's As If A Steel Rod Runs Right Through The Head Down To The Feet.

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When I Want To Think About What Would Be The Right Thing To Do, The Fair Thing To Do, The Wise Thing To Do, I Can Just Think Of My Grandmother. I Can Always Hear Her Say, "now Sister, You Know What's Right. Just Do Right!"

There Is No Place Where God Is Not.

Joy Is A Freedom. It Helps A Person To Find His/her Own Liberation. The Person Who Is Joyous Takes Responsibility For The Time He/she Takes Up And The Space That He/she Occupies. You Share It! Some Of You Have It ... You Share It! That Is What Joy Is! When You Continue To Give It Away You Will Still Have So Much More Of It.

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.

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

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

You Don't Need Another Person, Place Or Thing To Make You Whole. God Already Did That. Your Job Is To Know It.

I Find It Interesting That The Meanest Life, The Poorest Existence, Is Attributed To God's Will, But As Human Beings Become More Affluent, As Their Living Standard And Style Begin To Ascend The Material Scale, God Descends The Scale Of Responsibility At Commensurate Speed.

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

If We Are Honest And Fair, Then We Are Known By That. If We Are Not, Alas, We Are Known By That As Well. What We Want To Do Is Do Right, But You Have To Say It, You Have To Show It, And Not Stop.

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.

We All Have That Possibility, That Potential And That Promise Of Seeing Beyond The Seeming.

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.

You Should Be Angry. You Must Not Be Bitter. Bitterness Is Like Cancer. It Eats Upon The Host. It Doesn't Do Anything To The Object Of Its Displeasure. So Use That Anger. You Write It. You Paint It. You Dance It. You March It. You Vote It. You Do Everything About It. You Talk It. Never Stop Talking It.

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.

In A Magazine, One Can Get - From Cover To Cover - 15 To 20 Different Ideas About Life And How To Live It.

Different Ideas

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

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