Top 100 Maya Angelou Quotes

In this post you will find Top 100 Maya Angelou Quotes.

 

Maya Angelou Quotes

 

“I got my own back.”

 

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”

 

“I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.”

 

“Determine to live life with flair and laughter.”

 

“I created myself. I have taught myself so much.”

 

“I believe that every person is born with talent.”

 

“Having courage does not mean we are unafraid.”

 

“All great achievements require time.”

 

“To grow up is to stop putting blame on parents.”

 

“Nothing can dim the light that shines from within.”

 

“Nothing will work unless you do.”

 

“We are only as blind as we want to be.”

 

“Faith is the evidence of the unseen.”

 

“The only thing is, people have to develop courage.”

 

“Ask for what you want, and be prepared to get it.”

 

“Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.”

 

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

 

“If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.”

 

“I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.”

 

“At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.”

 

“If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.”

 

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

 

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

 

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

 

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

 

“Be present in all things, and thankful for all things.”

 

“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”

 

“You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.”

 

“Hate. It has caused a lot of problems in this world but it has not solved one yet.”

 

“Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.”

 

“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I’m with you kid. Let’s go.”

 

“I know for sure that loves save me and that it is here to save us all.”

 

“There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.”

 

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”

 

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

 

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do and liking how you do it.”

 

“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”

 

“I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.”

 

“There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.”

 

“If we lose love and self-respect for each other, this is how we finally die.”

 

“I think a hero is any person really intent on making a better place for all people.”

 

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

 

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

 

“A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.”

 

“Each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women.”

 

“The desire to reach the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise and most possible.”

 

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

 

“Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Invite one to stay.”

 

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

 

“If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.”

 

“I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.”

 

“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”

 

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”

 

“If you’re a human being, you can attempt to do what other human beings have done. We don’t understand talent any more than we understand electricity.”

 

“My mission in life is not to merely survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”

 

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

 

“Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without courage, you cannot practice any of the other virtues consistently.”

 

“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.”

 

“A cynical young person is almost the saddest sight to see, because it means that he or she has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.”

 

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

 

“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.”

 

“Stand up straight and realize who you are. That you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight.”

 

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

 

“I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”

 

“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”

 

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done, to try and love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”

 

“Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls.”

 

“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.”

 

“Courage – you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn’t want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself.”

 

“Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly, don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, “That’s life.”

 

“I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.”

 

“In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be.”

 

“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 talking it.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“I’m always disappointed when people don’t live up to their potential. I know that a number of people look down on themselves and consequently on everybody who looks like them. But that, too, can change.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“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. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“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.”

 

“Home is a refuge, not only from the world but a refuge from my worries, my terrible concerns. I like beautiful things around me. I like to be beautiful because it delights my eyes and my soul is lifted up.”

 

“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.”

 

“I was told many years ago by my grandmother who raised me: If somebody puts you on a road and you don’t feel comfortable on it and you look ahead and you don’t like the destination and you look behind and you don’t want to return to that place, step off the road.”

 

“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.”

 

“Look what you’ve already come through! Don’t deny it. You’ve already come through some things, which are very painful. If you’ve been alive until you’re 35, you have gone through some pain. It cost you something. And you’ve come through it. So at least look at that. And have a sense to look at yourself and say, “Well, wait a minute. I’m stronger than I thought I was.”

 

“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 each of 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.”

 

“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.”

 

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