If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
Maya AngelouRead
Human beings love poetry. They don't even know it sometimes... whether they're the songs of Bono, or the songs of Justin Bieber... they're listening to poetry.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Human beings have an innate appreciation for poetry, often unconsciously, through various forms of music.
In this quote, Maya Angelou highlights the deep-seated connection that people have with poetry, suggesting that it exists not only in classic forms but also in contemporary music. She emphasizes that whether it's through celebrated artists like Bono or pop icons like Justin Bieber, the lyrical quality of music resonates with our understanding and appreciation of poetry, often without us even realizing it.
Themes
PoetryMusicAppreciationArtLyrics
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the significance of lyrics in modern music, this quote would illustrate the connection between poetry and popular songs.
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.
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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
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Dorothea LangeRead
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Barbara KingsolverRead
Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.
Martin ScorseseRead
My feeling is that poetry will wither on the vine if you don't regularly come back to the simplest fundamentals of the poem: rhythm, rhyme, simple subjects - love, death, war.
James FentonRead