Marguerite Annie Johnson Who was famously known as Maya Angelou. Born on April 4, 1928 at St. Louis, Missouri in United States. Maya Angelou was an American poet, memoirist, and actress. In 1969 Maya Angelou’s first autobiographical work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings gained critical acclaim and a National Book Award nomination. She won three Grammy Awards for her spoken-word albums. Below listed with the Maya Angelou Quotes
Here’s an overview of Maya Angelou’s remarkable life:
- Maya Angelou Quotes about Life
- Quotes of Love by Maya Angelou
- Maya Angelou Quotes about Family
- Maya Angelou Quotes about Womanhood
Top 10 Quotes of Maya Angelou
All great achievements require time.
Maya Angelou
Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!
Maya Angelou
Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.
Maya Angelou
I believe that every person is born with talent.
Maya Angelou
I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t laugh.
Maya Angelou
If someone shows you who they really are, believe them.
Maya Angelou
Nothing will work unless you do.
Maya Angelou
We need much less than we think we need.
Maya Angelou
When you learn, teach, when you get, give.
Maya Angelou
Your belief and your work will speak for you.
Maya Angelou
Quotes about Life of Maya Angelou
Determine to live life with flair and laughter.
Maya Angelou
At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.
Maya Angelou
Don’t do anything that you think is wrong. just do what you think is right, and then be ready to back it up even with your life.
Maya Angelou
I believe in living a poetic life, an art full life. everything we do from the way we raise our children to the way we welcome our friends is part of a large canvas we are creating.
Maya Angelou
I have a feeling that i make a very good friend, and i’m a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. i am involved in life itself – all of it. and i have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve.
Maya Angelou
I have enough of life in me to make somebody jealous enough to want to knock me down. i have so much courage in me that i have the effrontery, the incredible gall to stand up. that’s it. that’s how you get to know who you are.
Maya Angelou
I’m convinced that the negative has power. it lives. and if you allow it to perch in your house, in your mind, in your life, it can take you over. so when the rude or cruel thing is said – the lambasting, the gay bashing, the hate – i say, take it all out of my house! those negative words climb into the woodwork and into the furniture, and the next thing you know they’ll be on my skin.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.
Maya Angelou
If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. you might save somebody’s life. your own, first.
Maya Angelou
It is always about the work. in the latter years of your life, your happiness and your self-esteem will be determined by the mountains you surmounted, the valleys you climbed out of, and the life and/or career that you forged for yourself.
Maya Angelou
Just do right. right may not be expedient, it may not be profitable, but it will satisfy your soul. it brings you the kind of protection that bodyguards can’t give you. so try to live your life in a way that you will not regret years of useless virtue and inertia and timidity. take up the battle. take it up. it’s yours. this is your life. this is your world.
Maya Angelou
Life is going to give you just what you put in it. put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.
Maya Angelou
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
Maya Angelou
Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.
Maya Angelou
My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, i laugh so hard i almost choke when i think about myself.
Maya Angelou
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
Maya Angelou
My mother is so full of joy and life. i am her child. and that is better than being the child of anyone else in the world.
Maya Angelou
She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.
Maya Angelou
The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. the challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, i maintain an attitude of gratitude. if i insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. today i am blessed.
Maya Angelou
There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.
Maya Angelou
You have to deal with what you encounter. but you must not be reduced. and so a way not to be reduced is don’t whine! don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low.
Maya Angelou
Quotes of Love by Maya Angelou
By love i don’t mean indulgence. i do not mean sentimentality. and in this instance, i don’t even mean romance. i mean that condition that allowed humans to dream of god. that condition that allowed the dumb to write spirituals and russian songs and irish lilts. that is love, and it’s so much larger than anything i can conceive.
Maya Angelou
First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. but any of it is better than never having been in love.
Maya Angelou
Had i known that the heart breaks slowly, dismantling itself into unrecognizable plots of misery… had i known yet i would have loved you, your brash and insolent beauty, your heavy comedic face and knowledge of sweet delights, but from a distance i would have left you whole and wholly for the delectation of those who wanted more and cared less.
Maya Angelou
Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.
Maya Angelou
Human beings are more alike than unalike. whether in paris, texas, or paris, france, we all want to have good jobs where we are needed and respected and paid just a little more than we deserve. we want healthy children, safe streets, to be loved and have the unmitigated gall to accept love.
Maya Angelou
I believe that people want the scent of love, more than anything else. and i don’t mean sentimentality, i don’t mean mush. i mean that idea, that human beings are more alike than we are different.
Maya Angelou
I do not trust people who don’t love themselves and yet tell me, ‘i love you.’ there is an African saying which is: be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.
Maya Angelou
I had to trust life, since i was young enough to believe that life loved the person
Maya Angelou
I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. life’s a bitch. you’ve got to go out and kick ass.
Maya Angelou
I’m working at trying to be a Christian, and that’s serious business. it’s like trying to be a good jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good shiniest, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy – it’s serious business.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. people love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
Maya Angelou
If a human being dreams a great dream, dares to love somebody; if a human being dares to be Martin king, or Mahatma Gandhi, or Mother Theresa, or Malcolm x; if a human being dares to be bigger than the condition into which she or he was born – it means so can you. and so you can try to stretch, stretch, stretch yourself so you can internalize, ‘homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto. i am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me.’ that’s one thing i’m learning.
Maya Angelou
If i’m here, i’ll be trying to be a better human being, a better writer, a better friend and a better beloved.
Maya Angelou
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
Maya Angelou
If you happen to fall in love with someone in another race, it’s more difficult, because you have to translate yourself.
Maya Angelou
If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning ‘good morning’ at total strangers.
Maya Angelou
If you want to liberate someone, love them. not be in love with them – that’s dangerous.
Maya Angelou
If you’re in love with your children, you’re in their lives all the time. leave them alone. let them grow and make some mistakes.
Maya Angelou
It’s hard because people think they have something to lose and the truth is they have everything to gain in trying to love somebody.
Maya Angelou
It’s very hard for adults to maintain respect and romance so that a love affair can be sustained over years.
Maya Angelou
Life loves the liver of it.
Maya Angelou
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, ‘i’m with you kid. let’s go’.
Maya Angelou
Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.
Maya Angelou
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.
Maya Angelou
My great hope is to laugh as much as i cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.
Maya Angelou
Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your mind to the wonders of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself.
Maya Angelou
The honorary duty of a human being is to love. – Maya Angelou
The sadness of the women’s movement is that they don’t allow the necessity of love. see, i don’t personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.
Maya Angelou
This is what i am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth.
Maya Angelou
To those who have given up on love: i say, trust life a little bit.
Maya Angelou
We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. tear out arrogance and seed humility. exchange love for hate – thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.
Maya Angelou
We need joy as we need air. We need love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.
Maya Angelou
Whatever you want to do, If you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.
Maya Angelou
When people see the laughing face, even if they’re jealous of it, their burden is lightened. But do it first for yourself. laugh and dare to try to love somebody, starting with yourself.
Maya Angelou
When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness… all the good things.
Maya Angelou
You can never be great at anything unless you love it. not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. and it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you. but if you’re in love with the thing, it may run like hell away from you.
Maya Angelou
You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. don’t make money your goal. instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou Quotes about Family
I sustain myself with the love of family.
Maya Angelou
My pride had been starched by a family who assumed unlimited authority in its own affairs.
Maya Angelou
The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. it heals the scars left by a larger society. a massive, powerful society.
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou Quotes about Womanhood
A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.
Maya Angelou
A woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. she goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself.
Maya Angelou
A woman’s heart should be so hidden in god that a man has to seek him just to find her.
Maya Angelou
All of my history as an African-american woman, as a Jewish woman, as a Muslim woman. i’m bringing everything i ever knew, and all the stories I’ve read – everything good, strong, kind and powerful. I bring it all with me into every situation, and i will not allow my life to be minimized by anybody’s racism or sexism or ageism.
Maya Angelou
Courage allows the successful woman to fail – and to learn powerful lessons from the failure – so that in the end, she didn’t fail at all.
Maya Angelou
I am a woman phenomenally, phenomenal woman that is your grandmother, that is your mother, that is your sister, that is you and that is me.
Maya Angelou
I am a woman. phenomenally. phenomenal woman, that’s me.
Maya Angelou
Men themselves have wondered what they see in me. they try so much but they can’t touch my inner mystery. when i try to show them they say they still can’t see. I say, it’s in the arch of my back, the sun of my smile, the ride of my breasts, the grace of my style. i’m a woman. phenomenally. phenomenal woman, that’s me.
Maya Angelou
Now you understand just why my head’s not bowed. i don’t shout or jump about or have to talk real loud. when you see me passing it ought to make you proud. i say, it’s in the click of my heels, the bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, the need of my care, ’cause i’m a woman. phenomenally. phenomenal woman, that’s me.
Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. i’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size. but when i start to tell them, they think i’m telling lies. i say, it’s in the reach of my arms the span of my hips, the stride of my step, the curl of my lips. i’m a woman. phenomenally. phenomenal woman, that’s me.
Maya Angelou
Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.
Maya Angelou
A man or woman who sees other people as whole and prepared and accords them respect and the same rights has arranged his or her own allies.
Maya Angelou
A bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.
Maya Angelou
A caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.
Maya Angelou
A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.
Maya Angelou
A leader sees greatness in other people. he nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.
Maya Angelou
Achievement brings its own anticlimax.
Maya Angelou
All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, Which tells us all that we are more alike than we are unalike.
Maya Angelou
All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.
Maya Angelou
Alone, all alone. nobody, but nobody. Can make it out here alone.
Maya Angelou
And still i rise: a book of poems
Maya Angelou
Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
Maya Angelou
As far as i knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, black men desired them and black women worked for them.
Maya Angelou
Be present in all things and thankful for all things.
Maya Angelou
Bitterness is like cancer. it eats upon the host. but anger is like fire. it burns it all clean.
Maya Angelou
Can i do it? i’d rather not try and fail. that’s stupid talk maya. every try will not succeed. but if you’re going to live, live at all, your business is trying…you fail, you get up and try again.
Maya Angelou
Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.
Maya Angelou
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. you can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
Maya Angelou
Courage, i don’t think anybody is born with courage. i think you may be born with a flair to braggadocio, you know. that’s not courage.
Maya Angelou
Don’t hesitate to learn the most painful aspects of our history, understand it.
Maya Angelou
Each child belongs to all of us and they will bring us a tomorrow in direct relation to the responsibility we have shown to them.
Maya Angelou
Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, i understand. i understand how you feel because i have been there myself. we must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.
Maya Angelou
Effective action is always unjust.
Maya Angelou
Every day i awaken i am grateful. my intent is to be totally present in that day. and laugh as much as possible.
Maya Angelou
Everybody is worth everything.
Maya Angelou
Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.
Maya Angelou
For africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. it is a historical truth. no man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.
Maya Angelou
Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.
Maya Angelou
Forgiveness. it’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. forgive everybody. you are relieved of carrying that burden of resentment. you really are lighter. you feel lighter. you just drop that.
Maya Angelou
Gives them mutuality of parentage. sisterhood and brotherhood are conditions people have to work at. it’s a serious matter. you compromise, you give, you take, you stand firm, and you’re relentless…and it is an investment. sisterhood means if you happen to be in burma and i happen to be in san diego and i’m married to someone who is very jealous and you’re married to somebody who is very possessive, if you call me in the middle of the night, i have to come.
Maya Angelou
God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us – in the dreariest and most dreaded moments – can see a possibility of hope.
Maya Angelou
Grace is like a lake of drinkable water right outside your door. but you stay inside and die of thirst.
Maya Angelou
Happiness is a chance to talk to a friend, to hear good music, to have a good glass of wine. happiness is a chance to be myself and to find people with whom i agree or who i don’t agree but i can learn something.
Maya Angelou
Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet. (this is one of my favorite maya angelou quote. leave a reply here and let me know what’s yours!
Maya Angelou
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
Maya Angelou
Home is a refuge not only from the world, but a refuge from my worries, my troubles; my concerns.
Maya Angelou
Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.
Maya Angelou
How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!
Maya Angelou
I am not competing with anyone other than myself. i want to be excellent at whatever i do.
Maya Angelou
I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people.
Maya Angelou
I became the kind of parent my mother was to me.
Maya Angelou
I believe that each of us comes from the creator trailing wisps of glory. so at this wonderful, young age of 65, i don’t know yet what the lord has for me to do. i try to live up to the energy and to the calling, but i wouldn’t dare say i have even scratched the surface yet.
Maya Angelou
I believe that one can never leave home. i believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of one’s eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.
Maya Angelou
I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare.
Maya Angelou
I believe we are still so innocent. the species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.
Maya Angelou
I believe what i have to say is important, and i believe the people coming to hear me are important, and so the occasion of itself alone has an importance, which forces me to stare down my nerves.
Maya Angelou
I can be changed by what happens to me, but i refuse to be reduced by it.
Maya Angelou
I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and i rose. i didn’t run away – i rose right where i’d been knocked down. and then that’s how you get to know yourself.
Maya Angelou
I do hope that young men and women will start to think for themselves and start to take responsibility for their own thoughts.
Maya Angelou
I do my best because i’m counting on you counting on me.
Maya Angelou
I do not believe that the accident of birth makes people sisters and brothers. it makes them siblings.
Maya Angelou
I encourage courtesy. to accept nothing less than courtesy, and to give nothing less than courtesy.
Maya Angelou
I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
Maya Angelou
I have respect for the past, but i’m a person of the moment.
Maya Angelou
I know that i’m not the easiest person to live with. the challenge i put on myself is so great that the person i live with feels himself challenged. i bring a lot to bear, and i don’t know how not to.
Maya Angelou
I like to go back and read poems that i wrote fifty years ago, twenty years ago, and sometimes they surprise me – i didn’t know i knew that then. or maybe i didn’t know it then, and i know more now.
Maya Angelou
I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.
Maya Angelou
I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever i find myself.
Maya Angelou
I never have written every day. when i’m writing a book, i write monday through friday. i always try to take saturday and pretend to have some sanity.
Maya Angelou
I pray for humility because that comes from inside out. and what humility does for one, is it reminds us that there are people before me. i have already been paid for. and what i need to do is prepare myself so that i can pay for someone else who has yet to come, but who may be here and needs me.
Maya Angelou
I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people.
Maya Angelou
I think that each of us is so much alike, and yet at the same time we are so different, and i have a feeling that if you encountered difficulty, and i with my age encountered the same difficulty, i would respond one way, and you would respond another. neither would be right or wrong. it’s just that eachof us is courageous, and that’s what i encourage, courage, and the courage to see, and the courage to say to oneself what one has seen. don’t be in denial.
Maya Angelou
I think the more we know the better we are. i mean not just facts. the more we know about each other, the closer we are to learn something about our selve.
Maya Angelou
I think we have systematically and critically harmed ourselves and many young people by advising them not to try things.
Maya Angelou
I think we ought to give ourselves more time. we should be more patient with ourselves and with each other.
Maya Angelou
I try to see every day as a celebration.
Maya Angelou
I want all my senses engaged. let me absorb the world’s variety and uniqueness.
Maya Angelou
I want you to learn that you cannot have anything without working for it.
Maya Angelou
I will look after you and i will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. i am here. i brought my whole self to you. i am your mother.
Maya Angelou
I wish that we could look into each other’s faces, in each other’s eyes, and see our own selves. i hope that the children have not been so scarred by their upbringing that they only think fear when they see someone else who looks separate from them.
Maya Angelou
I would encourage us all, african americans, asians, latinos, whites, native americans to study history. i long for the time when all the human history is taught as one history. i am stronger because you are stronger. i am weaker if you are weak. so we are more alike than we are unlike.
Maya Angelou
I’m a descendant of someone bought and sold, and brought in 1619 in what was to become the united states.
Maya Angelou
I’m here, and i do my best to be completely centered at the place i’m at, then i go forward to the next place.
Maya Angelou
I’m really saddened by the attempts to separate and polarize. this is a time when we have hungry people, people out of work, and people out of spirit. this is a time where we need to uplift, not to separate.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that even when i have pains, i don’t have to be one.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that forgiving is one of the greatest gifts that i can give myself.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that i still have a lot to learn.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that whenever i decide something with an open heart, i usually make the right decision.
Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled christmas tree lights.
Maya Angelou
If a person – any human being – is told often enough, you are nothing. you are nothing. you account for nothing. you count for nothing. you are less than a human being. i have no visibility of you, the person finally begins to believe it.
Maya Angelou
If i am going to do the most difficult and frightening thing – dying – is it possible that i could do some difficult and impossible things that are good?
Maya Angelou
If i am not good to myself, how can i expect anyone else to be good to me?
Maya Angelou
If i have a monument in this world, it is my son.
Maya Angelou
If i’m going to a new country, i try to learn something about the language and the culture, so i don’t just go bumbling over things.
Maya Angelou
If one has courage, nothing can dim the light which shines from within.
Maya Angelou
If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.
Maya Angelou
If somebody is really trying to take your head off with a baseball bat – i don’t know how long you’re supposed to stand there and turn the other cheek, so he or she can get a better angle at taking your head off.
Maya Angelou
If the door has been opened and i’ve been invited, or if i’m not invited and i somehow know i’m supposed to go in there, i put myself together and go in, praying all the while. i try to learn something before i go in. i try to show some respect of the place i’m going into.
Maya Angelou
If we live long enough, we may even get over war. i imagine a time when somebody will mention the word war and everyone in the room will start to laugh. and what do you mean war?
Maya Angelou
If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.
Maya Angelou
If you don’t like something, change it. if you can’t change it, change your attitude.
Maya Angelou
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
Maya Angelou
If you must look back, do so forgivingly. if you will look forward, do so prayerfully. but the wisest course would be to be present in the present gratefully.
Maya Angelou
In order to win, we pay with energy and effort and discipline. if we lose, we pay in disappointment, discontent, and lack of fulfillment.
Maya Angelou
In the 16th century, niccolò machiavelli – in an attempt to get back in the good graces of the powerful – wrote a slim volume called the prince. in that book he showed the powers that be how to control the people. that book is a statement: separate and rule, divide and conquer. that’s five hundred years ago and it still works, because we allow ourselves to be lead around with holes through our noses.
Maya Angelou
It is better to control oneself, if one can, and not hit back. but on certain occasions, it is imperative to defend oneself. i don’t think it’s fair to ask anybody not to defend herself or himself.
Maya Angelou
It is imperative that young white men and women study the black american history. it is imperative that blacks and whites study the asian american history.
Maya Angelou
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
Maya Angelou
It’s the fire in my eyes, and the flash of my teeth, the swing in my waist, and the joy in my feet.
Maya Angelou
It’s very important to know the neighbour next door and the people down the street and the people in another race.
Maya Angelou
Joy is a freedom. it helps a person to find his or her own liberation. the person who is joyous takes responsibility for the time he/she takes up and the space that he/she occupies. you share it! some of you have it … you share it! that is what joy is! when you continue to give it away you will still have so much more of it.
Maya Angelou
Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. and let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.
Maya Angelou
Let’s tell the truth to people. when people ask, ‘how are you?’ have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully.
Maya Angelou
Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of god.
Maya Angelou
Make every effort to change things you do not like. if you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. you might find a new solution.
Maya Angelou
Most people don’t grow up. most people age. they find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. what that is, is aging.
Maya Angelou
Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.
Maya Angelou
Music was my refuge. i could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
Maya Angelou
My great blessing is my son, but i have daughters. i have white ones and black ones and fat ones and thin ones and pretty ones and plain. i have gay ones and straight. i have daughters. i have asian ones, i have jewish ones, i have muslim ones.
Maya Angelou
My heart is so heavy when i see the reality of the indian reservation and as an american, i know i am, too, responsible.
Maya Angelou
My mother had said me, all right, you’ve been raised, so don’t let anybody else raise you. you know the difference between right and wrong. do right. and remember – you can always come home. and she continued to liberate me until she died.
Maya Angelou
My mother raised me, and then freed me.
Maya Angelou
My mother said i must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy.
Maya Angelou
My mother’s gifts of courage to me were both large and small. the latter are woven so subtly into the fabric of my psyche that i can hardly distinguish where she stops and i begin.
Maya Angelou
My people couldn’t have survived slavery without having hope that it would get better.
Maya Angelou
My wish for you is that you continue. continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.
Maya Angelou
My work is to be honest. my work is to try to think clearly, then have the courage to make sure that what i say is the truth.
Maya Angelou
Nature has no mercy at all. nature says, ‘i’m going to snow. if you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that’s tough. i am going to snow anyway.’
Maya Angelou
Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.
Maya Angelou
Nobody can enjoy unless we all enjoy, truly enjoy.
Maya Angelou
On her mother: on the night she died, i went to the hospital. i told my mom, let me tell you about yourself. you deserved a great daughter, and you got one. and you liberated me to be one. so if it’s time for you to go, you may have done everything god brought you here to do.
Maya Angelou
On her mother: she’d talk to me as if i had some sense.
Maya Angelou
On what she feels about the world today: i feel very hopeful, very expectant. i’m looking forward to it.
Maya Angelou
One person, with good purpose, can, constitute the majority.
Maya Angelou
Out of the huts of history’s shame, i rise. up from a past that’s rooted in pain, i rise. i’m a black ocean, leaping and wide. welling and swelling i bear in the tide. leaving behind nights of terror and fear, i rise. into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear, i rise. bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, i am the dream and the hope of the slave. i rise, i rise, i rise.
Maya Angelou
People feel guilty. and guilt is stymieing. guilt immobilizes. guilt closes the air ducts and the veins, and makes people ignorant.
Maya Angelou
People trying to separate people rather than bring us together… please. you don’t just see it in america. it’s all over the world.
Maya Angelou
Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
Maya Angelou
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
Maya Angelou
Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. patience alone will not build the temple. passion alone will destroy its walls.
Maya Angelou
Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.
Maya Angelou
Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence, neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish, it is an imponderably valuable gift.
Maya Angelou
Someone was hurt before you, wronged before you, hungry before you, frightened before you, beaten before you, humiliated before you, raped before you… yet, someone survived… you can do anything you choose to do.
Maya Angelou
Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. you are a child of god. stand up straight.
Maya Angelou
Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, i maintain an attitude of gratitude.
Maya Angelou
Surviving is important. thriving is elegant.
Maya Angelou
The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Maya Angelou
The best candy shop a child can be left alone in, is the library.
Maya Angelou
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.
Maya Angelou
The children to whom we read simple stories may or may not show gratitude, but each boon we give strengthens the pillars of the world.
Maya Angelou
The country didn’t get that way in a week; we’ve had years and years of getting behind in our economy. so president obama stepped into a hellhole and people wanted him to change it as soon as he came in. but he’s got his adversaries to deal with in the house and senate, so it’s not easy.
Maya Angelou
The fact that the adult american negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. it is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not end.
Maya Angelou
The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.
Maya Angelou
The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear.
Maya Angelou
Some more Quotes of MayaAngelou
The most difficult thing in the world, it seems to me, is to realize that i am a child of god; to keep that in my mind all the time.
Maya Angelou
The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.
Maya Angelou
The needs of society determine its ethics.
Maya Angelou
The only way you can be a mark is if you want something for nothing. if you’re greedy, you’re set up.
Maya Angelou
The problem i have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don’t know my story.
Maya Angelou
The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.
Maya Angelou
The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. if we don’t have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.
Maya Angelou
The root cause of all the problems we have in the world today is ignorance of course. but most, polarization.
Maya Angelou
The sisters and brothers that you meet give you the materials which your character uses to build itself. it is said that some people are born great, others achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. in truth, the ways in which your character is built have to do with all three of those. those around you, those you choose, and those who choose you.
Maya Angelou
The truth is very important. no matter how negative it is, it is imperative that you learn the truth, not necessarily the facts. i mean, that, that can come, but facts can stand in front of the truth and almost obscure the truth. it is imperative that students learn the truth of our history.
Maya Angelou
The truth is, right may not be expedient. it may not be profitable, but it will satisfy your soul.
Maya Angelou
There are those who say that poets should use her and his art to change the world. i’d agree with that, but i think everybody should do that. i think the chef and the baker and the candlestick maker – i think everybody should be hoping to make it a better world.
Maya Angelou
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
Maya Angelou
There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.
Maya Angelou
There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. facts can obscure the truth.
Maya Angelou
There’s racism and sexism and ageism and all sorts of idiocies. but bad news is not news. we’ve had bad news as a species for a long time. we’ve had slavery and human sacrifice and the holocaust and brutalities of such measure.
Maya Angelou
There’s something beautiful about the fact that obama was not just elected, but elected decisively across racial, and socio-economic and cultural groups and that we all celebrated in his win.
Maya Angelou
This is a wonderful day, i have never seen this one before.
Maya Angelou
Those who have something to say accept the fact that that’s lonely. one already knows that there will be adversaries.
Maya Angelou
We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.
Maya Angelou
We are growing up. we are growing up! out of the idiocies – the ignorances of racism and sexism and ageism and all those ignorance.
Maya Angelou
We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.
Maya Angelou
We are not just flesh and blood. and our hungers are not going to be set aside as just flesh and blood.
Maya Angelou
We are only as blind as we want to be.
Maya Angelou
We can be better, we can be wiser, we can be more kind. yes we have to change. we have to grow up and stop acting like 10 years old. yes there is much to do, much to see, much to go into.
Maya Angelou
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
Maya Angelou
We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. it may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are.
Maya Angelou
We need to not be in denial about what we’ve done, what we’ve come through. it will help us if we all do that.
Maya Angelou
We need to remember to teach our children that solitude can be a much-to-be-desired condition. not only is it acceptable to be alone; at times it is positively to be wished for…..in the silence we listen to ourselves. then we ask questions of ourselves. we describe ourselves to ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of god.
Maya Angelou
We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. it would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends and living our lives.
Maya Angelou
When i forgive other people, i let them go, i free them from my ignorance. and as soon as i do, i feel lighter, brighter and better.
Maya Angelou
When my bones are stiff and aching, and my feet won’t climb the stair, i will only ask one favor: don’t bring me no rocking chair. when you see me walking, stumbling, don’t study and get it wrong. ‘cause tired don’t mean lazy and every goodbye ain’t gone. i’m the same person i was back then, a little less hair, a little less chin, a lot less lungs and much less wind. but ain’t i lucky i can still breathe in.
Maya Angelou
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. people know themselves much better than you do. that’s why it’s important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are.
Maya Angelou
When teachers or people in authority put me down or in one way or another tried to make me feel less than equal to what they thought i should be – my mother was on my side. it was amazing.
Maya Angelou
More Quotes of Maya Angelou
When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe.
Maya Angelou
When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.
Maya Angelou
When you know you are of worth, you don’t have to raise your voice, you don’t have to become rude, you don’t have to become vulgar; you just are. and you are like the sky is, as the air is, the same way water is wet. it doesn’t have to protest.
Maya Angelou
While i know myself as a creation of god, i am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also god’s creation.
Maya Angelou
While the rest of the world has been improving technology, ghana has been improving the quality of man’s humanity to man.
Maya Angelou
Whining is just unbecoming.
Maya Angelou
Whining lets the brute know there’s a victim for him in the neighborhood.
Maya Angelou
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. it takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
Maya Angelou
You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self.
Maya Angelou
You can’t get too high for somebody to bring you down.
Maya Angelou
You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.
Maya Angelou
You can’t use up creativity. the more you use, the more you have.
Maya Angelou
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
Maya Angelou
You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, i’ll rise!
Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies. you may trod me in the very dirt, but still like dust, i’ll rise.
Maya Angelou
You only are free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all. the price is high. the reward is great.
Maya Angelou
You should be angry. you must not be bitter. bitterness is like cancer. it eats upon the host. it doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. so use that anger. you write it. you paint it. you dance it. you march it. you vote it. you do everything about it. you talk it. never stop taking it.
Maya Angelou
Early Life and Traumatic Childhood:
Maya Angelou’s early life was marked by hardship and trauma. At the age of three, her parents’ marriage ended, and she and her brother were sent to live with their paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. During her time there, she experienced racial prejudice and witnessed the effects of Jim Crow laws.
Early Career and Activism:
Maya Angelou’s early adulthood involved a diverse range of experiences. She worked as a fry cook, a nightclub performer, and even a calypso dancer. During the 1950s, she became involved in the civil rights movement, working with figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
Literary Career:
Maya Angelou’s first autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” published in 1969, garnered widespread acclaim and was a significant literary success. The book vividly recounted her childhood experiences. She continued writing autobiographies, poetry, essays, and plays, earning critical acclaim and numerous awards for her literary works.
Notable Works and Achievements:
Some of Maya Angelou’s most notable works include “Gather Together in My Name” (1974), “The Heart of a Woman” (1981), “Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas” (1976), and “On the Pulse of Morning,” a poem she recited at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993.
Teaching and Academic Career:
Maya Angelou held various teaching positions and served as a professor of American studies, writing, and women’s studies. She lectured at several universities and colleges, including Wake Forest University.
Personal Life and Impact:
Maya Angelou was married three times and had one son, Guy Johnson. Throughout her life, she used her experiences and voice to advocate for civil rights, gender equality, and social justice. She is celebrated not only for her literary contributions but also for her inspirational speeches and activism.
Legacy and Recognition:
Maya Angelou received numerous awards and honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts. She passed away on May 28, 2014, but her words and activism continue to resonate with people around the world.
Maya Angelou’s works and activism have had a profound and lasting impact on literature, civil rights, and the empowerment of individuals, particularly women and African Americans. She is remembered as a remarkable literary figure and a beacon of hope for social progress and equality.