If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
Maya AngelouRead
I thank God that I've lived long enough to see what I have seen, and I pray that people will continue to do better. We are doing better, it may not seem so, but there was a time when people were lynched in the middle of the street and it was not against the law. We are doing better, but we have so much more to do.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects gratitude for progress made in society while acknowledging the ongoing need for improvement.
Maya Angelou expresses appreciation for the advancements in human rights and societal progress she has witnessed over her lifetime. She highlights a historical context of injustice, contrasting it with the current state of affairs, underscoring that while we have made significant strides, there is still much work to be done to achieve true equality and justice for all.
Themes
ProgressChangeJusticeGratefulnessEquality
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared at a community meeting to encourage awareness of social progress.
More from Maya Angelou
All quotes →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 commensurate speed.
Maya AngelouRead
The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn't need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder-in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.
Maya AngelouRead
I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?
Maya AngelouRead
I know that I'm not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don't know how not to.
Maya AngelouRead
I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people - one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion's den. You can't just play around with all those big cats - you've got to take somebody on.
Maya AngelouRead
Similar quotes
The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers - a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.
Shirley ChisholmRead
Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.
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If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery; and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost father-land, with bright prospects for the future; and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation.
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There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C. S. LewisRead
Why did everything always change when all you wanted, all you had ever humbly asked of whatever God there might be, was that certain things be allowed to stay the same?
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This is a great country, but fortunately for you, it is not perfect. There is much to be done to bring about complete equality. Remove hunger. Bring reality closer to theory and democratic principles.
Thurgood MarshallRead