Maya Angelou quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Maya Angelou on Wise Famous Quotes.

The terrorist action of 9/11 gave birth to President Obama's entry to the White House. Not directly, but indirectly.

Rainbows are people whose lives are bright, shining examples for others.

My hope is that we develop enough courage to develop courage. To try to have, try to learn to treat each other fairly, with generosity and kindness.

I did what I knew.. when I knew better, I did better

Of course I could drive. Idiots and lunatics drove cars. Why not the brilliant Marguerite Johnson?

No one has ever become poor from giving.

Living a life is like constructing a building: if you start wrong, you'll end wrong.

We can only know where we're going if we know where we've been.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

Because of technological breakthroughs, the society will need fewer and fewer unskilled laborers.

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.

Inscribed on the temple of Apollo

When I say 'I am a Christian', I'm not shouting 'I'm saved'. I'm whispering 'I get lost'. That is why I chose this way ...

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.

It is sad but true that sometimes we need the tragedy to help us to see how human we are and how we are more alike than we are different.

One must know not just how to accept a gift, but with what grace to share it.

It may in fact be utterly impossible to be successful without helping others to become successful.

When women take care of their health they become their own best friend.

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.

Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.

My pride had been starched by a family who assumed unlimited authority in its own affairs.

I encourage you to live with life. Be courageous, adventurous. Give us a tomorrow, more than we deserve.

The customs are as formalised as an eighteenth-century minuet, and a child at the race's knee learns the moves and twirls by osmosis and observation.

All knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market.

At our best, we're all teachers

The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned pricks more deeply and draws more blood.

Thank you, always say thank you; it's the greatest gift you can give someone; because thank you is what you say to God.

Just as hope rings through laughter, it can also shine through tears.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

I speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition
about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive.

Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.

Bitterness is cancer - it eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure.

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.

You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.

Always in the black spirituals there's that promise that things are going to be better, by and by.

You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.

Nothing hurts more than realizing they meant everything to you, but you meant nothing to them.

When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness ... all the good things.

Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace.

Mother's life flowed radiant. Flourescent-tipped waves on incoming tides.

All I got to do is stay black and die.

I've learned that forgiving is one of the greatest gifts that I can give myself.

Lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.

Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more.

under my eye, but not my thumb.

Never let white folks know what you really think. If you're sad, laugh. If you're bleeding inside, dance.

You dwell in whitened castles
with deep and poisoned moats
and cannot hear the curses
which fill your children's throats.

A mother's love liberates.

Life loves the liver of it.

I had to trust life, since I was young enough to believe that life loved the person who dared to live it. I

At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.

A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream.

Removed from their own day of glorious release

They were assured that they were going to be the only inhabitants of that milk and honey...

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

Still I'll rise.

We must be warriors in the struggle against ignorance

I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English.

Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.

Let nothing dim the light that shines from within

I was basically good. Not understood, and not even liked, but even so, just, and better than just. I was merciful.

You can call for the cook, call for the baker, you may as well call for the undertaker.

She's one of our fans. She comes to the theater and allows us to curse and berate her, and that's her contribution to our struggle. Roscoe

Seek the fashion which truly fits and befits you. You will always be in fashion if you are true to yourself, and only if you are true to yourself.

The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.

Language is man's way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone which separates him from the lower animals.

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.

I want to be a good human being. I'm doing my best, and I'm working at it.

Be courageous, but not foolhardy. Walk proud as you are.

Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.

Because of our routines we forget that life is an ongoing adventure.

I think that that's the wisest thing - to prevent illness before we try to cure something.

I've never had a dislike for men. I've been badly treated by some. But I've been loved greatly by some. I married a lot of them.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

Every day I awaken I am grateful. My intent is to be totally present in that day. And laugh as much as possible.

To be human is to be challenged to be more divine. Not even to try to meet such a challenge is the biggest defeat imaginable.

One person, with good purpose, can, constitute the majority.

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

You can never be great at anything unless you love it.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear, I rise.

When we know better, we do better.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

A person must make the effort to learn, and growing is the inevitable reward of learning. He

Do not be wedded forever to fear, yoked eternally to brutishness.

I was seventeen, very old, embarrassingly young,

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

The future is plump with promise.

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

Money and power can liberate only if they are used to do so. They can imprison and inhibit more finally than barred windows and iron chains.

People don't always remember what you say or even what you do, but they always remember how you make them feel.

You don't have to tell everything you know, but let what you do say be the truth as you understand it.

But still, like air, I'll rise

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

We are more alike than we are unalike!" That

The music was my friend, my lover, my family.

Continue to be bold, courageous. Try to chose the wisest thing and once you've chosen the wisest thing go out and try to achieve it. Be it.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable.

I answer the heroic question, 'Death, where is thy sting?' with 'It is in my heart and mind and memories.

If I'm here, I'll be trying to be a better human being, a better writer, a better friend and a better beloved.