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We really are 15 countries, and it's remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The Midwesterner in Kansas, the black American in Durham - both are certain they are the real American.

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
Represent
Culture
Remarkable
Black
Diversity
Certain
Thinks
America
Countries
Midwesterner
Country
Atheism
Midwesterners
Real
Justice
Durham
Really
Kansas
Thinking
American

More quotes by Maya Angelou

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All of my history as an African-American woman, as a Jewish woman, as a Muslim woman. I'm bringing everything I ever knew, and all the stories I've read - everything good, strong, kind and powerful. I bring it all with me into every situation, and I will not allow my life to be minimized by anybody's racism or sexism or ageism.
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It is the worst thing you can do, women, is whine, .. I mean the worst. Don't complain, protest.
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Still, when it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the clouds.
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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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'God put the rainbow in the clouds, not just in the sky'... It is wise to realize we already have rainbows in our clouds, or we wouldn't be here. If the rainbow is in the clouds, then in the worst of time, there is the possibility of seeing hope... We can say 'I can be a rainbow in the cloud for someone yet to be.' That may be our calling.
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Because of technological breakthroughs, the society will need fewer and fewer unskilled laborers.
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Every day offers you 10,000 reasons to cry, but if you can find just one reason to laugh then you will be all right.
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Effective action is always unjust.
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When we decide to be happy we accept the responsibility to bring happiness to someone else.
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You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, 'I'm a representative. '
Maya Angelou
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As soon as healing takes place, go out and heal somebody else.
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You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.
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Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn't be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely.
Maya Angelou
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If you're for the right thing, you do it without thinking.
Maya Angelou
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Whether you are happy or whether you are sad, it is wise to remember you are really in process.
Maya Angelou
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I am convinced that most people do not grow up ... our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias.
Maya Angelou
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Even here in America, we felt the cool, refreshing breeze of freedom when Nelson Mandela took the seat of Presidency in his country where formerly he was not even allowed to vote. We were enlarged by tears of pride as we saw Nelson Mandela's former prison guards invited, courteously, by him to watch from the front rows his inauguration.
Maya Angelou
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Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
Maya Angelou
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Sunday, if I'm lucky, I'll go to church or listen to some good spiritual advice on the television or on the radio. I take three or four baths to try to cleanse myself, so I'm fresh for Monday.
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