A Selfless Art

Anderson Cooper: You don’t believe that there was true equality yet.

Maya Angelou: Oh, I know there isn’t, and you know there isn’t, and everybody who hears you knows there isn’t. And yet this is what we have to have. The only thing is, Mr. Cooper, people have to develop courage. It is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can be anything erratically, and in front of the microphone, in front of the camera, but to be that thing in your heart, you have to have courage. And so I’m afraid that we are, we are lacking in courage. We think—we are afraid. And fear, I’m sorry to say, motivates most of the cruelties in our world.

Maya Angelou speaking to Anderson Cooper on CNN, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 21 January 2013 (YouTube, 29 Aug 2013)