If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
Maya AngelouRead
Today, the first & last of every Tree/ Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the deep connection between nature and humanity, highlighting the wisdom trees can impart.
Maya Angelou's quote reflects the idea that nature, specifically trees, has a profound message for humankind. The imagery of a tree speaking to people suggests that there are lessons in the natural world that we can learn from, urging us to connect with nature and find wisdom beside the river, a symbol of life and continuity.
Themes
TreesHumankindNatureWisdomRiver
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, use this quote to emphasize the importance of connecting with nature.
More from Maya Angelou
All quotes βI 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
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Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.
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I suppose there were moonless nights and dark ones with but a silver shaving and pale stars in the sky, but I remember them all as flooded with the rich indolence of a full moon.
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A plant is like a self-willed man, out of whom we can obtain all which we desire, if we will only treat him his own way.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
The vocation of being a 'protector' [. . .] means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us [. . .] In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of Godβs gifts!
Pope FrancisRead
It is the abiding concern of thinking people to preserve what keeps men human-to save our contact with nature of which we are a part.
Wallace StegnerRead