Maya Angelou: 10 quotes on her birthday

Best known for her autobiographical I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou has led a multifaceted life as celebrated poet, author, educator, civil rights activist, and many things besides. After being raped by her mother's boyfriend when she was seven and a half, Angelou turned mute for the next five years, during which time she imbibed writers like Shakespeare, Poe, and Matthew Arnold. Angelou's unflinchingly honest memoirs are inspired by, and continue to inspire, the belief that the individual must never finally settle for defeat. Throughout her career, Angelou has expanded her body of work in a plethora of ways; embracing her reputation as "the people's poet," she has even created signature Hallmark greeting cards. To pay tribute to this great voice of our nation on her 84th birthday, here are some of her best quotes.

1. Maintaining a positive attitude

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. (Letter to My Daughter)

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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