Maya Angelou quotes
A literary voice revered globally for her poetic command and her commitment to civil rights has fallen silent. Maya Angelou died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Wednesday, May 28th, 2014. Maya Angelou's legacy is twofold. She leaves behind a body of important artistic work that influenced several generations. But the 86-year-old was praised by those who knew her as a good person, a woman who pushed for justice and education and equality. What follows are some of Maya Angelou's most acclaimed quotes.. “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.” “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.” "Love life, engage in it, give it all you've got. love it with a passion, because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it”. “If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.” “You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don't make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you.” “If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.” “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.” “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.” “This is my life. it is my one time to be me. I want to experience every good thing.” “I’ve learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life." “If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.” “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. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. 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.” “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.” “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” “See, you don’t have to think about doing the right thing if you are for the right thing then you’ll do it without thinking.” “Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.” “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.” “Each of us has the right and the responsibility to asses the roads which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the feature road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.” “My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.” “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”. “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.” “Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible and live long lives”.
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