Quote by Maya Angelou: “You may shoot me with your words, but still, like air, I'll rise.”

No matter how much someone tries to crush you with insults or cruelty, they cannot keep you down permanently. Like air, which cannot be destroyed, your spirit has the power to rise above whatever is thrown at you. Resilience is built into who you are.

Still I Rise was published in Angelou's 1978 poetry collection And Still I Rise, during a period of post-civil-rights-era reckoning in the United States. Black Americans were navigating gains made by the movement while still facing systemic discrimination and cultural erasure.

American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist whose 1969 autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings brought her international recognition. She delivered her poem 'On the Pulse of Morning' at President Clinton's 1993 inauguration, becoming one of the most celebrated American writers of the twentieth century.