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In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions. Alfred North Whitehead		Wednesday Mar 18, 2026
		Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969

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For Africa to me ... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place. Maya Angelou

Quote Author: Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou , born Marguerite Ann Johnson April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri, is an American poet, memoirist, actress and an important figure in the American Civil Rights Movement. In 2001 she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in America by Ladies Home Journal. Maya Angelou is known for her series of six autobiographies, starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, (1969) which was nominated for a National Book Award and called her magnum opus. Her volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die (1971) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Other Maya Angelou Quotes

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.

Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

I know why the caged bird sings.

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed.

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.

Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

Still I rise....

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

For Africa to me ... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.