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Being free is being able to accept people for what they are, and not try to understand all they are or be what they are.

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
Able
Trying
People
Accept
Accepting
Free
Understand

More quotes by Maya Angelou

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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.
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I encourage courtesy. To accept nothing less than courtesy, and to give nothing less than courtesy. If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.
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If you have a song to sing, who are you not to open your mouth and sing to the world?
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No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
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To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.
Maya Angelou
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Not everything you do is going to be a masterpiece, but you get art there and you try and sometimes it really happens. The other times you’re just stretching your soul.
Maya Angelou
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Continue to plant a kiss of concern on the cheek of the sick and the aged and infirm and count that actions as natural and to be expected.
Maya Angelou
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Mostly, what I have learned so far about aging, despite the creakiness of one's bones and cragginess of one's once-silken skin, is this: Do it. By all means, do it.
Maya Angelou
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You can't really know where you are going until you know where you have been.
Maya Angelou
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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
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The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.
Maya Angelou
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I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.
Maya Angelou
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Shakespeare must be a black girl.
Maya Angelou
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Yet it is only love which sets us free.
Maya Angelou
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I try to live what I consider a poetic existence. That means I take responsibility for the air I breathe and the space I take up. I try to be immediate, to be totally present for all my work.
Maya Angelou
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On the day of your birth, the Creator filled countless storehouses, set aside for your use and yours alone.
Maya Angelou
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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
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A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.
Maya Angelou
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The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.
Maya Angelou
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Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother.
Maya Angelou