‘There’s a place in you that you must keep inviolate’: Maya Angelou

Dr Maya Angelou, an American poet, and civil rights activ, inspired people worldwide through her writing, pieces of advice, and teachings.
When Oprah asked Dr Angelou on her show, “What is the best advice you have ever given?”, she replied, “The best advice I’ve ever given — I hope — is that which I gave to my son when he was growing up. He said, ‘I don’t have any friends. How can I get some friends?’ I told him two things. I told him, ‘In order to get a friend, you have to be a friend…’ And also I told him, ‘There’s a place in you that you must keep inviolate. You must keep it prine, clean, so that nobody has the right to curse you or treat you badly. Nobody. No mother, father, no wife, no husband, nobody.”

According to her, one should “say no when it’s no”. To her, advising her son to protect himself is not just for emotional reasons, but spiritual as well: “That may be the place where you go to when you meet God”, “You have to have a place where you say, ‘Stop it. Back up…’ Because that place has to remain clean and clear.” The poet further added, “When a person comes with rude language to you, invasive language to you, you have to be able to say, ‘back up’”.
When Oprah asked her ” What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten?”, Angelou said that the “greatest advice is to forgive”, in order to protect herself
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