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I believe what I have to say is important, and I believe the people coming to hear me are important, and so the occasion of itself alone has an importance, which forces me to stare down my nerves.

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
Important
Staring
Believe
Occasions
People
Forces
Importance
Coming
Hear
Stare
Alone
Occasion
Force
Nerves

More quotes by Maya Angelou

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Don't bring negative to my door.
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I might have it at six-fifteen a.m. just as soon as I get in, but usually it's about eleven o'clock when I'll have a glass of sherry.
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Dr. [Martin Luther] King was a human being. He had a sense of humor which was wonderful.
Maya Angelou
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I am a woman phenomenally, phenomenal woman that is your grandmother, that is your mother, that is your sister, that is you and that is me.
Maya Angelou
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Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.
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I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.
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Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.
Maya Angelou
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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.
Maya Angelou
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I believe that people want the scent of love, more than anything else. And I don't mean sentimentality, I don't mean mush. I mean that idea, that human beings are more alike than we are different. And that means that I can love you. I don't mean support you in bad things you do, that I can understand because you're a human being.
Maya Angelou
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Your life is much more important that you can imagine... it is your first treasure.
Maya Angelou
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A single fantasy can transform a million realities.
Maya Angelou
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Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your mind to the wonders of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself.
Maya Angelou
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You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone else's cloud. Do not complain. Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.
Maya Angelou
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Be wary when a naked person offers you his shirt
Maya Angelou
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Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.
Maya Angelou
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We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate - thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.
Maya Angelou
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Let choice whisper in your ear and love murmur in your heart. Be ready. Here comes life.
Maya Angelou
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Some people cannot see a good thing when it is right here, right now. Others can sense a good thing coming when it is days, months, or miles away.
Maya Angelou
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When we cast our bread upon the waters we can presume that someone downstream whose face we will never know will benefit from our action, as we who are downstream from another will profit from the grantor's gift.
Maya Angelou
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Depending on who I am talking about or who's talking through me - if the person is a kind of hip-hop, or rhythm and blues person, or if the person is a kind of old-fashion gothic, meaning gothic attitude, then that will determine what form the poem will take.
Maya Angelou