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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.

Maya Angelou

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Maya Angelou
Age: 86 †
Born: 1928
Born: April 4
Died: 2014
Died: May 28
Author
Autobiographer
Comedian
Dancer
Essayist
Film Director
Film Producer
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Politician
St. Louis
Missouri
Marguerite Annie Johnson
Marguerite Johnson
Marguerite Ann Johnson
Marguerite Anne Johnson
Practice
Necessarily
Born
Honesty
Inspirational
Healing
True
Inspiring
Cannot
Courage
Merciful
Without
Strength
Consistency
Kind
Honest
Generous
Virtue
Potential

More quotes by Maya Angelou

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I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people - one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion's den. You can't just play around with all those big cats - you've got to take somebody on.
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Precious jewel, you glow, you shine, reflecting all the good things in the world. Just look at yourself.
Maya Angelou
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Time itself is an individual gift. It is wise to cherish it carefully and give it away generously.
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Love builds up the broken wall and straightens the crooked path. Love keeps the stars in the firmament and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides. Each of us is created of it and I suspect each of us was created for it.
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Won't it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.
Maya Angelou
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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.
Maya Angelou
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The sisters and brothers that you meet give you the materials which your character uses to build itself. It is said that some people are born great, others achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. In truth, the ways in which your character is built have to do with all three of those. Those around you, those you choose, and those who choose you.
Maya Angelou
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The hope, the hope that lives in the breast of the black American, is just so tremendous that it overwhelms me sometimes.
Maya Angelou
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If I'm here, I'll be trying to be a better human being, a better writer, a better friend and a better beloved.
Maya Angelou
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Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
Maya Angelou
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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.
Maya Angelou
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We are not our brother’s keeper we are our brother and we are our sister. We must look past complexion and see community.
Maya Angelou
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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.
Maya Angelou
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There is a lot of ignorance, and I don't mean intellectual ignorance. I mean people think that if you get something, it will take away from what I have. It's just ignorance.
Maya Angelou
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Everything costs and costs the earth.
Maya Angelou
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Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.
Maya Angelou
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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.
Maya Angelou
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Everybody in the world wants the same thing...to be needed...a job that he/she can do well...to love somebody...Everybody...There's no mystery.
Maya Angelou
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I believe that people want the scent of love, more than anything else. And I don't mean sentimentality, I don't mean mush. I mean that idea, that human beings are more alike than we are different. And that means that I can love you. I don't mean support you in bad things you do, that I can understand because you're a human being.
Maya Angelou
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Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.
Maya Angelou