Quoting: Maya Angelou

Life Lessons
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So, to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

Love life
Love life, engage in it, give it all you've got. Love it with a passion, because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.

Forgiving yourself
I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes - it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.'
If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self.
I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.

Don't Complain
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers.

Inspired by A Circle Of Women: Wisdom From Maya Angelou

Comments

[Tracey]

Maya Angelou is a wonderful soul, who has wisdom seemingly from beyond this earth. I love the line "...people will never forget how you made them feel". Thankyou for sharing this piece Ellen, it makes me feel grateful for knowing you!

xx Tracey

P.S. I have a new site for my blog, so you may want to update it on your Other Favourites roll. Thanks so much xx

[so grateful to be mormon]

hi ellen -- great post, really great. and i have also loved that first quote for years. thanks for touching my day with this, blessings, kathleen