Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou
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.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Maya Angelou
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My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
Maya Angelou
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thinking over and over and over of that clip from a maya angelou talk about the importance of knowing one another's history. no matter how brutal no matter how bleak no matter how despairing no matter anything because the only way through it is to go all the way through it. and the only way to build anything with one another is by having gone all the way through it because otherwise there is no connection. whats a connection worth that's built on ignorance? sustained by ignorance? "only equals can make friends" she says. only equals.
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When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Maya Angelou
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Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.
Maya Angelou
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At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
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ms angelou i will never get over this
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Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.
Maya Angelou
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There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
- Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.
Maya Angelou
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