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To be human is to be challenged to be more divine. Not even to try to meet such a challenge is the biggest defeat imaginable.

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
Divine
Challenges
Human
Imaginable
Humans
Challenged
Even
Defeat
Trying
Biggest
Challenge
Meet

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Don't trust people who don't laugh. I don't.
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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.
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The world had taken a deep breath and was having doubts about continuing to revolve.
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I have enough of life in me to make somebody jealous enough to want to knock me down. I have so much courage in me that I have the effrontery, the incredible gall to stand up. That's it. That's how you get to know who you are.
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I think all poems are commissioned. They just come to me without somebody outside commissioning them. The idea comes and I will live with them 'til I get it as close to what I mean. I've never been totally satisfied. I've come close a few times.
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First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.
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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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People will never forget how you made them feel.
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One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.
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Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
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You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome.
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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.
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The most noble cause known to man is the liberation of the human mind and spirit.
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It's true. I can do anything and do it well because God loves me. It still humbles me.
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Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace.
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It's very hard for adults to maintain respect and romance so that a love affair can be sustained over years.
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I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I'm a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself - all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve.
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I'm really saddened by the attempts to separate and polarize. This is a time when we have hungry people, people out of work, and people out of spirit. This is a time where we need to uplift, not to separate.
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If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self.
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You can't really know where you are going until you know where you have been.
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