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, damage 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