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The first thing I do in the morning when I awaken is say, 'Thank you, Lord!' I'm grateful to be alive, and I'm going to try to tell the truth as well as I know and tell it as eloquently as I can so that people can hear it.
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
First
Alive
Thing
Morning
Trying
Lord
Eloquently
Going
Tell
Awaken
People
Truth
Thank
Wells
Inspiring
Firsts
Grateful
Well
Hear
More quotes by Maya Angelou
I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.
Maya Angelou
I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn't run away - I rose right where I'd been knocked down. And then that's how you get to know yourself. You say, hmm, I can get up!
Maya Angelou
When I love somebody, I like him to be around I like him to take me out to dinner I like to look at the sunset with him. But if not, I love him and I hope he's looking at the same sun I am. Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age. Some of this wisdom came to me after I was 50 or 60.
Maya Angelou
We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are.
Maya Angelou
We are missing Michael. But we do know we had him, and we are the world.
Maya Angelou
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
Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.
Maya Angelou
That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.
Maya Angelou
If we don't plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don't have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don't have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.
Maya Angelou
The truth is very important. No matter how negative it is, it is imperative that you learn the truth, not necessarily the facts. I mean, that, that can come, but facts can stand in front of the truth and almost obscure the truth. It is imperative that students learn the truth of our history.
Maya Angelou
If I'm going to a new country, I try to learn something about the language and the culture, so I don't just go bumbling over things.
Maya Angelou
I'm working at trying to be a Christian, and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy: it's serious business.
Maya Angelou
Modesty is a learned affectation. It's no good. Humility is great, because humility says, 'There was someone before me. I'm following in somebody's footsteps.'
Maya Angelou
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.
Maya Angelou
Creativity or talent, like electricity, is something I don't understand but something I'm able to harness and use.
Maya Angelou
When you do nothing you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.
Maya Angelou
Don't let the man bring you down.
Maya Angelou
Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it empowers us to develop courage to trust that courage and build bridges with it to trust those bridges and cross over them so we can attempt to reach each other.
Maya Angelou
I'm a writer and writers either have good memories or nothing at all.
Maya Angelou
I have heard it said that winter, too, will pass, that spring is a sign that summer is due at last. See, all we have to do is hang on.
Maya Angelou