I too am convinced that courage is a treasured virtue. It enables friendships to prosper, resentments to dissipate with time, and gives us the inner strength to wake up and conquer another day, come what may.

. . . courage is the most important virtue a journalist can have. Without it, you may be able to track down the truth, but you may not be able to make yourself tell it.

Thank you for this.....I need this...and will keep it as one of my affirmations.

Mrs.  Angelou, 

I just wanted you to know that I hear you.  For years I ran from it, even with my elders telling me that I was the one; that I had some great gift to give the world.  I was never like any other child.  Now I see them as virtues  but my peers always saw them as weaknesses.  I  was soo shy and quiet then.  It was almost like a silent protest.

I used to think that maybe, someone else would come along and do the  job.  After all I wasn't anywhere near perfect and had many flaws.  Lord knows I've tried to run from it.  Now, at the ripe old age of 26, (a baby to you), I have come to the conclusion that whatever the lord calls upon me  to do I will do.  It doesn't  matter anymore how much sacrifice is involved.  I doesn't matter how many will try to stop me.  I am a servant.  It's my job.  Who's going to help lead them if I don't.  Who's going to help inspire them if I don't.  Since I've accepted it, my life has become richer. I now truly see without having to stare.  I'm in a euphoric state; then I get knocked down a step or two .  But then, I  painfully and humbly get back up.   And yes, as a start I will work my way through A-Br, in the library.  You were right by the way; it was was an  american female. The high yellow color of my skin only shows the mixing of all of us.  It is that time. 

Perfectly, Acknowledgement of these words your biography...
At us about bravery many statement is well told …
: «A good name is better than riches”, “Better a glorious death than a shameful life”, “A courageous man, never wants weapons” … but, our ancestors also warned: “All truths are not to be told” …
…“even loving for a while. But it is only with courage that you can be persistently and insistently kind and generous and fair” _a wise constancy...

Ms. Angelou,

One of the quotes I have near my writer's desk is by Anais Nin, "Life expands or contracts in proportion to one's courage." Clearly it's a virtue you've cultivated, and your life has been so much bigger than it might have been had you not, had you instead let your difficult beginning in Stamps define and limit you. And you've expanded the lives of others, even, including mine, for which you deserve my thanks.

I saw you speak at my college, Eckerd, in St. Pete, shortly before my graduation, and I was so impressed by your grace and presence. Some time later, I waited out in the January cold before Pres. Clinton's inauguration, not so much for that but to hear you read your lovely poem, "On the Pulse of the Morning," of which I still have a little copy picked up later at Olsson's, displayed face out at one end of a bookshelf that has another poem at the other end, Langston Hughe's "Let America Be America Again," published in the same format eight years later, with a forward by Sen. Kerry.

Shortly after hearing you read that bitterly cold morning, I wrote a poem to you, about how you'd inspired me to be more than the world seemed inclined to let me be. I shared it with my former mentor, Peter Meinke, and he urged me to share it with you, sure you'd enjoy it. Alas, at the time I lacked the courage, and now that I have it, I'm not sure I still have the poem. I do at least thank you, though, now, for living your life in the way that you have, as an excellent example for how to be truly human.

 i am hundred percent sure about that and agrre with her. as because of a bangladeshi women i feel it with my heart. in my life there is only courege, and it is always save me. i always beleave be couregious but don't be a dare davil.

labanya prava

Yes, I am convinced too, courage is one of the most important virtues.

Thank you very much for your beautiful words of sacred wisdom!

And a very important missing word that has been left out of my story, that needs to be inserted somehwere more than once. A word that is needed to be known.

Thank You again!

Courage is the virtue ...that was there all along!

Blessings and Love to you Maya Angelou!

Truly,

Catherine Nagle

When I read your (Maya Angelou) quote it brought to mind something I wrote to an interviewer some time ago and now resides on my web site: www.frankwestcott.com. I invite you to visit. The quote is below. Scroll through.

All blessings.

Frank

From my web site: www.frankwestcott.com

And you know, it is all found in the courage...

When asked what

inspires me, I responded

...

People who have beaten the odds inspire me. People who do something bigger than themselves inspire me.

People who try, then cry in loss and defeat and stand again, and are able to walk into their futures and give meaning to these losses, inspire me.

People who, after these events, become tougher, wiser, unconquered & move in ways bigger than themselves for the betterment of this world, inspire me.

People like these inspire me.

People, these, who are graced with knowing of pain from some source, who are able to move beyond this pain, and use this pain to heal themselves, and at the same time open the inner doors for the healing of others.

These people inspire me.

Frank Westcott, November, 2000

holykiss I believe courage is the mastery of fear.

Thank You, Dr. Maya Angelou!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Your words do bless.

We can rise!

BE free of inner mess.

With new eyes!

True Vision!

True Courage!

Know all is well!

As we go deeper within!

Love and Blessings!

Abby : )

It's all too true. When I look back on some of the terrible things that happened in my life... simply because I sucked it up and said I wasn't going to take it any more.
I put my "Big Boy Pants" on so to speak.

It was Courage that let me do that. In today's society, everyone is so busy trying to be PC all the time, sometimes they forget to have a backbone.

Ms. Angelou, you're the greatest. This quote is going on my list of kick-butt quotes.

Two years ago, my eldest stepdaughter tried to convince me why I should jump out of a plane with her. She was embarking on a path to apply to medical school for the second time, felt terrified, and decided skydiving was a means to take control of her fear.

"What have you ever done that was courageous?" she asked me over dinner one night. For a week, she had been nagging me to jump with her. For seven years, her father had insisted that my jumping out of a plane was a stipulation of his marriage proposal. I had vehemently resisted.

"Well, I HAD married your father," I responded. In 2000, her father was a widowed army chaplain with eight children. We met through an online dating service, I fell in love (stupidly, some say), and agreed to marry him. We had tried to create a family from our blended brood of eleven children, but my three children simply couldn't adjust. Subsequently, after battling for two months in New York's family court, my ex- won custody. Courage meant being a mom to my husband's babies without having the pleasure of being a custodial mom to my own.

"Touche," she laughed. And I agreed to jump with her anyway.

I suppose my point in this little anecdote is that each of us has a boogey man, one whom we perceive hides in the dark recesses of our mental closets. Courage is finding the strength to open that closet door, to turn on the light so we can see that we were afraid of a coat on a hangar.