Quotes by Famous Americans Past and Present
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Quotes by Famous Americans Past and Present
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Maya Angelou Quotes Click here for Maya Angelou books The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou (Modern Library) "You may write me down in history *** "We, unaccustomed to courage *** "People will forget what you said *** "When we come to it *** "Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends." "Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it." "One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest." "How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!" "If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls." "A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent." "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." "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." "At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice." "Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances." "I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water." "History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." "Human beings are more alike than unalike, and what is true anywhere is true everywhere, yet I encourage travel to as many destinations as possible for the sake of education as well as pleasure." "If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers." "The needs of society determine its ethics." "I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver." "I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition— about what we can endure, dream, fail at, and still survive." "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." "In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric." "Lyrical poetry is out for the time being, and something that is called rap or hip-hop is in. It is still poetry, and we can't live without it. 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." "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." "Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible." "The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear." "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." "The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn't need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder— in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever." "There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth." "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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