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- Published on Saturday, 31 May 2014 07:20
- Written by Sally Allen
Poet, author, and activist, Maya Angelou, whose died on Wednesday, packed a lot of living in her 86 years on this earth. She was a lady of grace, power, and peace. She touched the hearts, minds and souls of many. Especially the graduates of Quinnipiac University in 1996. Several Southbury residents had the privilege to meet her through work or school and hear her speak.
Her capacity for personal evolution—from surviving harrowing childhood trauma to thriving as an activist, memoirist, and poet—has served as a source of inspiration and hope, as have her words.
Here are some that have especially resonated with me. How about 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."
"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."
"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."
"I do not trust people who don't love themselves and yet tell me, 'I love you.' There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt."
"Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant."
"You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody."
"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it."
"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."
"Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art."
"A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face."
"We need much less than we think we need."
"When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young."
Image courtesy of http://mayangelou.com/gettyimages
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