Maya Angelou Quotes

Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiri...

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some com...

When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.

I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where yo...

Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stand...

I gave birth to one child, a son, but I have thousands of daughters. You are Black and White, Jewish...

I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I mak...

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

There have been people in my life who meant me well, taught me valuable lessons, and others who have...

Fighting for one's freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good...

Life loves the liver of it.

It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

Love. And again, see I don't mean, I think love is that condition in the human spirit so profund, th...

The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its desti...

Once you appreciate one of your blessings, one of your senses, your sense of hearing, then you begin...

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, ...

You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

I speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition--about what we ca...

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, t...

I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.

At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in...

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else's c...

We need much less than we think we need.

I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'.

We need to develop courage, and we need to develop it in small ways first..... You develop a little ...

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

To those who are given much, much is expected.

In the flush of love's light, we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and ...

A Woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing.She goes where she will without pretense ...

While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone ...

If funkytown was a trailerpark, this guy would be a double-wide.

Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That's th...

That's what you want to do? Then nothing beats a trial but a failure. Give it everything you've got....

Making a decision to write was a lot like deciding to jump into a frozen lake.

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned...

Take a day to heal from the lies you’ve told yourself and the ones that have been told to you.

Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on t...

I'm working at trying to be a Christian, and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good ...

You can't use up creativity. The more you use the more you have.

And my seven-year-old world humpty-dumptied, never to be put back together again.

There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may tread me in the very dirtBut ...

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some p...

All great achievements require time.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

As soon as healing takes place, go out and heal somebody else.

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a ra...

Nothing will work unless you do.

We, unaccustomed to courageexiles from delightlive coiled in shells of lonelinessuntil love leaves i...

I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning...

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a youn...

I want to thank you, Lord, for life and all that's in it. Thank you for the day and for the hour, an...

This a a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before.

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives...

No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African sa...

I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I me...

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

Segregation shaped me education liberated me.

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or w...

When I walk in, they may like me or dislike me, but everybody knows I'm here

If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the ...

I find relief from the questions only when I concede that I am not obliged to know everything. I rem...

We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily — as...

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades ...

When Great Trees FallWhen great trees fall,rocks on distant hills shudder,lions hunker downin tall g...

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the...

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying th...

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some p...

Ignorance is a terrible thing. It causes families to lose their center and causes people to lose the...

She said, 'No, you learned that you have power - power and determination. I love you and I am proud ...

They may have forgotten how badly they treated you, or they may pretend that they have forgotten. Bu...

My mother's gifts of courage to me were both large and small. The latter are woven so subtly into th...

Go," she whispered. "Go. Show them you spell your name W-O-M-A-N.

I want you to write down your blessings.

remember this: When you cross my doorstep, you have already been raised. With what you have learned....

This is the role of the mother. And in that visit I really saw clearly, for the first time, why a mo...

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.(Popular misquote of "You m...

You are very kind and very intelligent and those elements are not always found together. Mrs. Eleano...

That day, I learned that I could be a giver by simply bringing a smile to another person. The ensuin...

I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fea...

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Thomas Wolfe warned in the title of America’s great novel that ‘You Can’t Go Home Again.’ I enjoyed ...

...one can never leave home...one carries the shadows, the dreams, the dragons of home under one's s...

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

Many members of that early band of twentieth-century pilgrims must have yearned for the honesty of S...

Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you ...

A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face.

I learned to love my son without wanting to possess him and I learned how to teach him to teach hims...

Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.

I am a WomanPhenomenally.Phenomenal Woman,that's me.

Let's tell the truth to people. When people ask, 'How are you?' have the nerve sometimes to answer t...

The human heart is so delicate and sensitive that it always needs some tangible encouragement to pre...

I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that gr...

I am never proud to participate in violence, yet I know that each of us must care enough for ourselv...

In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons. The epitom...

I'm young as morningand fresh as dew.Everybody loves meand so do you.

Lovers think quite different thoughtswhile lying side by side.

A certain person wondered whya big strong girl like mewouldn't keep a jobwhich paid a normal salary....