If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
Maya AngelouRead
I'm not sure if resilience is ever achieved alone. Experience allows us to learn from example. But if we have someone who loves us-I don't mean who indulges us, but who loves us enough to be on our side-then it's easier to grow resilience, to grow belief in self, to grow self-esteem. And it's self-esteem that allows a person to stand up.
Interpretation
Resilience is easier to build when supported by love and encouragement from others.
Maya Angelou emphasizes the importance of supportive relationships in developing resilience and self-esteem. While personal experiences teach us valuable lessons, having someone who truly loves and stands by us greatly facilitates our ability to grow, believe in ourselves, and ultimately stand up against life's challenges.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming obstacles, a speaker could use this quote to highlight the role of support in personal growth.
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.
It's a big error to think that because you like somebody's work, you're going to like him.
When people rely on surface appearances and false racial stereotypes, rather than in-depth knowledge of others at the level of the heart, mind and spirit, their ability to assess and understand people accurately is compromised.
Part of the reason people don't talk about their loneliness is that they feel they will be judged for it.
At any age, we struggle with intimacy. When you're a kid, you think, 'I won't have that problem. I'll have sex whenever I want when I'm a grown-up!' And then, somehow, it doesn't quite turn out that way, and it's so surprising to people that connection remains so challenging even when you're married.
Neither old people nor sour people seem to make friends easily; for there is little that is pleasant in them.
Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life.
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