If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
Maya AngelouRead
But from a distance. I would have left you whole and wholly for the delectation of those who wanted more and cared less.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a selfless love that prioritizes the happiness of the beloved over personal desires.
Maya Angelou's quote speaks to the theme of selflessness in love, where the speaker expresses a willingness to allow the beloved to be 'whole' and appreciated by others who may not have the same depth of feeling. This love is characterized by a recognition that sometimes, true affection means letting someone go to pursue their happiness, even if it means sacrificing one's own desires.
In practice
During a wedding toast when discussing the importance of letting your partner pursue their dreams.
If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
When I say the word You, I mean _x000D_ a hundred universes.
When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.
Love you! Girl, you're in the very core of my heart. I hold you there like a jewel. Didn't I promise you I'd never tell you a lie? Love you! I love you with all there is of me to love. Heart, soul, brain. Every fibre of body and spirit thrilling to the sweetness of you. There's nobody in the world for me but you, Valancy.
Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament β¦ There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth.
The gospel is the proclamation of free love; the revelation of the boundless charity of God. Nothing less than this will suit our world; nothing else is so likely to touch the heart, to go down to the lowest depths of depraved humanity, as the assurance that the sinner has been loved -- loved by God, loved with a righteous love, loved with a free love that makes no bargain as to merit, or fitness, or goodness.
It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.
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