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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.

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
Murdered
Give
Innocent
Murderer
Still
Species
Throat
Persons
Compassion
Cups
Person
Positive
Enough
Sweet
Puts
Giving
Literature
Believes
Wrench
Believe
Water
Final
Wrenches
Stills
Finals

More quotes by Maya Angelou

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And I not only have the right to stand up for myself, but I have the responsibility. I can't ask somebody else to stand up for me if I won't stand up for myself. And once you stand up for yourself, you'd be surprised that people say, Can I be of help?
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Living a life is like constructing a building: if you start wrong, you'll end wrong.
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jealousy is conceived only in insecurity and must be nourished in fear.
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Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops.
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I try to see every day as a celebration.
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We need to not be in denial about what we've done, what we've come through. It will help us if we all do that.
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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.
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We must create a climate where people agree that human beings are more alike than unalike. The only way to do that is through education.
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I do not think of myself as unusually creative. I think we all come from the creator, each human being streaming with the glory. So each one of us is creative.
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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.
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While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man's humanity to man.
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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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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.
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It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
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I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned affectation. It's like decal stuck up on a person.
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I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life...her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing.
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I pray for humility because that comes from inside out. And what humility does for one, is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come, but who may be here and needs me.
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I, with millions of other Americans, have the same dream Martin Luther King Jr. had when I wake up I wish some of the things I dreamt would be true. I wish that little black and white boys and girls would hold hands without being shocked at their nearness to each other and say in a natural way, we have overcome.
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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.
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I'm very blessed that I have a healthy temper. I can become quite angry and burning in anger, but I have never been bitter. Bitterness is a corrosive, terrible acid. It just eats you and makes you sick.
Maya Angelou