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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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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
Better
Positivity
Cancer
Success
Best

More quotes by Maya Angelou

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I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.
Maya Angelou
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Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.
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I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people.
Maya Angelou
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Be present in all things and thankful for all things.
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Reality has changed chameleonlike before my eyes so many times that I have learned, or am learning, to trust almost anything except what appears to be so.
Maya Angelou
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Don't let the man bring you down.
Maya Angelou
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Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.
Maya Angelou
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I write because I am a Black woman, listening attentively to her people.
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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I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment.
Maya Angelou
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Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls.
Maya Angelou
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Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.
Maya Angelou
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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.
Maya Angelou
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You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.
Maya Angelou
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By love I don't mean indulgence. I do not mean sentimentality. And in this instance, I don't even mean romance. I mean that condition that allowed humans to dream of God.That condition that allowed the dumb to write spirituals and Russian songs and Irish lilts. That is love, and it's so much larger than anything I can conceive.
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
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We need to remember to teach our children that solitude can be a much-to-be-desired condition. Not only is it acceptable to be alone at times it is positively to be wished for.....In the silence we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves to ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of God.
Maya Angelou
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Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: 'I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.'
Maya Angelou
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Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.
Maya Angelou
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I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I'm a human being, too. And I'm on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.
Maya Angelou