Quote collection
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"I know that you that you may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. If you accept that you have been defeated, you give power to the force that is trying to defeat you."
"Don't hesitate to learn the most painful aspects of our history, understand it."
"I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do."
"My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself."
"I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it."
"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."
"If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die."
"Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency."
"Effective action is always unjust."
"In a magazine, one can get - from cover to cover - 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it."
"Had I not had my grandmother, who dared to be my rainbow in the clouds, I would have been just another sexually abused barefoot black girl on the roads of Arkansas."
"Original thinking migrates each day in search of nourishment."
"The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my feet without ceasing into the camp of the righteous and into the tents of the free."
"We all have that possibility, that potential and that promise of seeing beyond the seeming."
"I try to live what I consider a "poetic existence." That means I take responsibility for the air I breathe and the space I take up. I try to be immediate, to be totally present for all my work."
"There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing."
"I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better."
"I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people."
"I’ve got a magic charm That I keep up my sleeve, I can walk the ocean floor And never have to breathe."
"We can be better, we can be wiser, we can be more kind. Yes we have to change. We have to grow up and stop acting like 10 years old. Yes there is much to do, much to see, much to go into."