Individuality

Read about the intricacies of individuality, courtesy of charismatic African-Americans.

Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common.
Satchel Paige

As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you - the first time around.
Oprah Winfrey, Magazine

Cast down your bucket where you are.
Booker T. Washington

Deal with yourself as a individual, worthy of respect and make everyone else deal with you the same way.
Nikki Giovanni

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.
Booker T. Washington

I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow if I fail, if I succeed at least I did as I believe.
Whitney Houston, Greatest Love of All

I didn?t want to say ?No? because I didn?t want people to think I?m not nice. And that, to me, has been the greatest lesson of my life: to recognize that I am solely responsible for it, and not trying to please other people, and not living my life to please other people, but doing what my heart says all the time.
Oprah Winfrey

I have always tried to be true to myself, to pick those battles I felt were important. My ultimate responsibility is to myself. I could never be anything else.
Arthur Ashe

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.
Frederick Douglass

I think it's always best to be who you are.
Halle Berry

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.
Audre Lorde

If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.
Oprah Winfrey

If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.
Nikki Giovanni

If you send up a weather vane or put your thumb up in the air every time you want to do something different, to find out what people are going to think about it, you're going to limit yourself. That's a very strange way to live.
Jessye Norman

Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself.
Jessye Norman

Sometimes you?ve got to let everything go-purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything ?whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you?ll find that when you?re free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.
Tina Turner

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one's self. All sin is easy after that.
Pearl Bailey

Too much agreement kills a chat.
Eldridge Cleaver

You can't base your life on other people's expectations.
Stevie Wonder

You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.
Billie Holiday

Your own need to be shines out of any dream or creation you imagine.
James Earl Jones