If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
Maya AngelouRead
Try to be all you can be to be the best human being you can be. Try to be that in your church, in your temple. Try to be that in your classroom. Do it because it is right to do.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Strive to reach your full potential and do your best in every aspect of life.
Maya Angelou emphasizes the importance of personal growth and striving to be the best version of ourselves in various settings, such as spiritual spaces and educational environments. She advocates for living with integrity and purpose, suggesting that our efforts to improve ourselves should be rooted in the belief that it is the right thing to do, regardless of external recognition or reward.
Themes
PotentialIntegrityGrowthSelf-ImprovementRight Action
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech at a community event.
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
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Just strengthening that theme that America is a place of opportunity and hoping to inspire people to fulfill those opportunities, and to want more, and to want better, and to see the places we can go. So many people identify with me because of the place that I come from.
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Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh", said Hagrid. “Harry — yer a wizard.
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Will someone else's life be brighter tomorrow, because of what you have done today?
William Arthur WardRead