Maya Angelou

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• You may write me down in history
  With your bitter, twisted lies,
  You may trod me in the very dirt
  But still, like dust, I'll rise.
  • "Still I Rise" in And Still I Rise (1978)

• Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
  • As quoted in USA Today (5 March 1988)
  • Variant:
  • Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
    • As quoted in Diversity : Leaders Not Labels (2006) by Stedman Graham, p. 224

• Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
  • Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993) p. 12.

• People will forget what you said
  People will forget what you did
  But people will never forget how you made them feel.
  • As quoted in Worth Repeating : More Than 5,000 Classic and Contemporary Quotes (2003) by Bob Kelly, p. 263

• There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.
  • As quoted in The Truth in Words (2005) by Neal Zero

• I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life.
  • As quoted in Goal Mapping : How to Turn Your Dreams into Realities (2006) by Brian Mayne, p. 84

A Brave and Startling Truth

Written for the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations

• We, unaccustomed to courage
  exiles from delight
  live coiled in shells of loneliness
  until love leaves its high holy temple
  and comes into our sight
  to liberate us into life.

• If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.

• Love costs all we are
  and will ever be.
  Yet it is only love
  which sets us free.
  A Brave and Startling Truth.

• It is possible and imperative that we discover
  A brave and startling truth.

• When we come to it
  We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
  Created on this earth, of this earth
  Have the power to fashion for this earth
  A climate where every man and every woman
  Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
  And without crippling fear
  
  When we come to it
  We must confess that we are the possible
  We are the miraculous, the true wonders of this world
  That is when, and only when
  We come to it.