If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
Maya AngelouRead
Original thinking migrates each day in search of nourishment.
Interpretation
Original thoughts require regular inspiration and stimulation to grow.
Maya Angelou's quote emphasizes the importance of feeding one's creativity and intellect with new ideas and experiences. Just as a plant needs nutrients and care to flourish, our thinking must be nurtured through continuous learning and exploration to produce original ideas.
In practice
During a creative writing workshop, I reminded participants that their original thinking migrates each day in search of nourishment.
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.
To the generous mind the heaviest debt is that of gratitude, when it is not in our power to repay it.
The mind's direction is more important than its progress.
I see disappointment as something small and aggregate rather than something unified or great. With a little effort, every failure can be turned into something good.
While everyone else is thinking about economics and politics, executive salaries and the future of the euro, do the opposite, even if it's hard. Invest in the spirit.
The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
Start the practice of self-control with some penance; begin with fasting.
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