Maya Angelou
African-American poet, memoirist, actress, director, and civil rights activist.
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
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.
You don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking.
A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. [...] Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
It is possible and imperative that we discover
A brave and startling truth.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
We grow despite the
horror that we feed
upon our own
tomorrow.
We grow.
Petulant priests, greedy
centurions, and one million
incensed gestures stand
between your love and me.
I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life.
You were a precious pearl
How I loved to see you shine,
You were the perfect girl.
And you were mine.
For a time.
For a time.
Just for a time.
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.
People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel.
When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.
Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.
Only when we confess our confusion can we remember that he was a gift to us and we did have him.
He came to us from the creator, trailing creativity in abundance.
Despite the anguish, his life was sheathed in mother love, family love, and survived and did more than that.
He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his.
Love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
A Brave and Startling Truth.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.