172 Famous Quotes by Maya Angelou

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There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. (Meaning)

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. (Meaning)

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded. (Meaning)

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. (Meaning)

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love. (Meaning)

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. (Meaning)

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

Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud. (Meaning)

We all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it. (Meaning)

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You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot (Meaning)

Nothing will work unless you do. (Meaning)

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

The wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me. (Meaning)

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

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

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

A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim. (Meaning)

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

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All great achievements require time. (Meaning)

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

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning. (Meaning)

Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. (Meaning)

The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are. (Meaning)

You shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. (Meaning)

Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life. (Meaning)

Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time. (Meaning)

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. (Meaning)

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

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

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. (Meaning)

What is a fear of living? It's being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don't know what you're here to do, then just do some good. (Meaning)

Giving liberates the soul of the giver. (Meaning)

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself. (Meaning)

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too. (Meaning)

I got my own back. (Meaning)

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, 'I'm a representative.' (Meaning)

If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be. (Meaning)

Every journey begins with a single step. (Meaning)

Nothing can dim the light which shines from within. (Meaning)

When you learn, teach, when you get, give. (Meaning)

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

I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people. (Meaning)

Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option. (Meaning)

Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet. (Meaning)

We need much less than we think we need. (Meaning)

Be present in all things and thankful for all things. (Meaning)

All great acheivements require time. (Meaning)

No sun outlasts its sunset, but will rise again and bring the dawn. (Meaning)

Lord keep Your arm around my shoulder and Your hand over my mouth. (Meaning)

Success is loving life and daring to live it. (Meaning)

I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare. (Meaning)

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

You can't really know where you are going until you know where you have been (Meaning)

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

A joyful spirit is evidence of a grateful heart. (Meaning)

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

I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh. (Meaning)

Live as though life was created for you. (Meaning)

The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change. (Meaning)

Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time. (Meaning)

I come as one, but stand as 10,000. (Meaning)

If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me? (Meaning)

When we know better, we do better. (Meaning)

When you know better you do better. (Meaning)

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

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated. (Meaning)

The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. (Meaning)

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities. (Meaning)

Freedom is never free. (Meaning)

A Woman in Harmony with her Spirit is like a river flowing. (Meaning)

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

We are only as blind as we want to be. (Meaning)

Life loves the person who dares to live it. (Meaning)

Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. (Meaning)

Laugh as much as you can. (Meaning)

I believe that every person is born with talent. (Meaning)

Everyone grows old but not everyone grows up. (Meaning)

In diversity there is beauty and there is strength. (Meaning)

Don't bring negative to my door. (Meaning)

I am the dream and the hope of the slave (Meaning)

I keep hitting the escape button but I am still here! (Meaning)

Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone. (Meaning)

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

Poetry is music written for the human voice. (Meaning)

To those who are given much, much is expected. (Meaning)

But still, like air, I'll rise (Meaning)

All knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market. (Meaning)

I’ve got a magic charm That I keep up my sleeve, I can walk the ocean floor And never have to breathe. (Meaning)

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition. (Meaning)

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

I sustain myself with the love of family. (Meaning)

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it! (Meaning)

People will never forget how you made them feel. (Meaning)

Determine to live life with flair and laughter. (Meaning)

Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now. (Meaning)

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

Life loves the liver of it. (Meaning)

She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy. (Meaning)

Being a woman is hard work. (Meaning)

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die. (Meaning)

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. (Meaning)

If I have a monument in this world, it is my son. (Meaning)

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

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. (Meaning)

No one has ever become poor from giving. (Meaning)

Don't let the man bring you down. (Meaning)

Be the rainbow in someone else's cloud. (Meaning)

Hope is born again in the faces of children. (Meaning)

Faith is the evidence of the unseen. (Meaning)

Without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues. (Meaning)

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams. (Meaning)

Effective action is always unjust. (Meaning)

All God's children need traveling shoes. (Meaning)

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. (Meaning)

We do the best we can with what we know, and when we know better, we do better. (Meaning)

The needs of a society determine its ethics. (Meaning)

Out of the huts of history's shame I rise. (Meaning)

Be wary when a naked person offers you his shirt (Meaning)

Having courage does not mean we are unafraid. (Meaning)

Yet it is only love which sets us free. (Meaning)

I have great respect for the past. (Meaning)

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

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

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.

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

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.

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

I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going. I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment. 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.

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.

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

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

Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.

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

You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.

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

Nothing will work unless you do.

Won't it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.

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

I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.

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

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

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

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

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

All great achievements require time.

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

I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.

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

It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.

I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good.

The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.

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.

Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

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

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.

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

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

I believe that every person is born with talent.

We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men... We are who we are because they were who they were. It's wise to know where you come from, who called your name.

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

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

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

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.

What is a fear of living? It's being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don't know what you're here to do, then just do some good.

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

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!

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

I got my own back.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, 'I'm a representative.'