Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelouwas an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and was credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth4 April 1928
CitySt. Louis, MO
CountryUnited States of America
There's something which impels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.
I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.
You rose into my life like a promised sunrise, brightening my days with the light in your eyes. I've never been so strong. Now I'm where I belong.
Soft you day, be velvet soft, My true love approaches, Look you bright, you dusty sun, Array your golden coaches. Soft you wind, be soft as silk My true love is speaking. Hold you birds, your silver throats, His golden voice I'm seeking. Come you death, in haste, do come My shroud of black be weaving, Quiet my heart, be deathly quiet, My true love is leaving.
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. Don't complain.
Continue to be bold, courageous. Try to choose the wisest thing and once you've chosen the wisest thing go out and try to achieve it. Be it.
It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can't do anything with that except do it.
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.
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.
No human being can be more human than another human being. I liberate you from my ignorance.
Be courageous, but not foolhardy. Walk proud as you are.
Each of us has a responsibility for being alive: one responsibility to creation, of which we are a part, another to the creator a debt we repay by trying to extend our areas of comprehension.
Some of us are timid. We think we have something to lose so we don't try for that next hill.
There is an intimate laughter to be found only among friends