Quote

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.

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
Enough
Effrontery
Much
Gall
Make
Knock
Life
Jealous
Incredible
Courage
Somebody
Stand

More quotes by Maya Angelou

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I think we ought to give ourselves more time. We should be more patient with ourselves and with each other.
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We are all human therefore, nothing human can be alien to us.
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The black kids, the poor white kids, Spanish-speaking kids, and Asian kids in the US - in the face of everything to the contrary, they still bop and bump, shout and go to school somehow. Their optimism gives me hope.
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You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.
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In a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists.
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It is sad but true that sometimes we need the tragedy to help us to see how human we are and how we are more alike than we are different.
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Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.
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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.
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I always felt, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK.
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You can't get too high for somebody to bring you down.
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I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned affectation. It's like decal stuck up on a person.
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Moderation in all things. And even moderation in moderation. Don't get too much moderation, you know?
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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.
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I'm a descendant of someone bought and sold, and brought in 1619 in what was to become the United States.
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Be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity.
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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.
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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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In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric.
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I sustain myself with the love of family.
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It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
Maya Angelou