On making an impression: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.” On courage: “Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. On control: “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” On womanhood: “I am a Woman/Phenomenally./Phenomenal Woman,/that's me.” If you can't change it, change your attitude.” On attitude: “If you don't like something, change it. By the time she died on May 28, 2014, she had written a total of 36 books - including cookbooks - and her gift for crafting words has forever left us with some of the most inspirational and memorable quotes of our time. Paving so many firsts is simply proof of Angelou’s ability to break down barriers in every field she pursued. and later worked with Macolm X to set up the Organization of Afro-American Unity when she lived in Africa. Throughout her many careers, she was actively involved with the civil rights movement, serving as the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference where she met Martin Luther King Jr. The renaissance woman continued evolving her artistic talents by focusing on poetry, even reciting her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration - the first inaugural recitation since 1961. Her bestseller about her early life went on set a record for being on the New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list for two years, and when her screenplay for Georgia, Georgia was turned into a movie in 1972, she also became the first African American woman to have her screenplay produced. While she got a Tony nomination for the play Look Away in 1973 and Emmy nomination for the TV miniseries Roots in 1977, it was her writing that helped her pave even more firsts. The next decade, she found success as a performer, starring in a touring production of Porgy and Bess, as well as off-Broadway’s Calypso Heat Wave in 1957 and releasing an album Miss Calypso the same year. As retaliation, her uncles killed her perpetrator, scarring the young girl to the point that she didn’t speak for about five years.Įventually, she moved out west and started carving out her own path - becoming the first African American cable car conductor in San Francisco in the 1940s. There, she faced discrimination - and was raped by her mother’s boyfriend at the age of seven. Louis, Missouri, Angelou had a traumatic childhood after her family moved to Arkansas. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.Maya Angelou made her mark in literary history by writing the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman: her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.īut that wasn’t her only first - or even her first one.īorn April 4, 1928, in St. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”Īnd the trade winds soft through the sighing trees.” She will need to prize her tenderness and be able to display it at appropriate times in order to prevent toughness from gaining total authority and to avoid becoming a mirror image of those men who value power above life, and control over love.” “A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a woman called by a devaluing name will only be weakened by the misnomer. “The caged bird sings with a fearful trillĪnd his tune is heard on the distant hill for “I know for sure that love saves me and that it is here to save us all.” “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” “In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” And I see myself as a very interested person. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. “I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.” “You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. “A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.” “My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.” “We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.” “It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
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