“Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.”

—  Maya Angelou, book Gather Together in My Name

Gather Together in My Name (1974), p. 17.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable." by Maya Angelou?
Maya Angelou photo
Maya Angelou247
American author and poet 1928–2014

Related quotes

W. H. Auden photo

“All pity is self-pity.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Interlude: West's Disease", p. 243
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“You can only grieve so much; after that it’s self pity.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farmer in the Sky

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 18, “Pioneer Party” (p. 188)

“We have as much evidence that T. rex was feathered, at least during some stage of its life, as we do that australopithecines like Lucy had hair.”

Mark Norell (1957) American paleontologist

As quoted by B. Keim (2012) "Giant Feathered Tyrannosaur Found in China" Wired (April 4, 2012)

Oscar Wilde photo

“What fire does not destroy, it hardens”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Laurie Halse Anderson photo

“Emma is a mattress who got thrown off the truck when her parents split up. It's not like you can blame a mattress when people don't tie it down tight enough.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Thomas Müntzer photo

“God speaks only in the suffering of creatures, a suffering that the hearts of the unbelievers do not have because they become more and more hardened.”

Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525) early Reformation-era German pastor who was a rebel leader during the German Peasants' War

"A Protest about the Condition of the Bohemians," p. 5
Wu Ming Presents Thomas Müntzer, Sermon to the Princes

Colette photo

“In its early stages, insomnia is almost an oasis in which those who have to think or suffer darkly take refuge.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

Hans Christian Andersen photo

“They could see she was a real Princess and no question about it, now that she had felt one pea all the way through twenty mattresses and twenty more feather beds. Nobody but a Princess could be so delicate.”

Hans Christian Andersen book The Princess and the Pea

The Princess and the Pea
Fairy Tales (1835)
Source: The Princess and the Pea: The Graphic Novel

John Calvin photo

“Becoming more callous and hardened when God thunders verbally from heaven, they obstinately persist in their rebellion. It is only when actually smitten by his hand that they are forced, whether they will or not, to fear. This fear the sacred writers term servile, and oppose to the free and voluntary fear which becomes sons.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 3, Chapter 2, Section 27, p. 480
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Related topics