Maya Angelou Quotes

My people couldn't have survived slavery without having hope that it would get better. And there's some songs from the 19th and 18th century that say [sings], "By and by, by and by, I will lay down, this heavy load." And I mean, so many songs that spoke of hope and understand it better by and by. Amazing songs. So that the slaves, just knowing that he, she, did not have the right legally to walk within one inch away from where the slave owner dictated, and yet the same person, wrote and sang with fervor, "If the lord wants somebody, here am I, send me." It's amazing.

Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

Still, when it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the clouds.

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.

I think I know that I deserve better. And so I try for better. I'm never so put off that I would ever walk out of a place not having tried the best I could.

A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.

There's something which impels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.

Don't get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that - if you dare. But get older because it's fun!

On the day of your birth, the Creator filled countless storehouses, set aside for your use and yours alone.

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome.

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.

You never get over the fear of writing.

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

In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment.

The breezes of the West African night were intimate and shy, licking the hair, sweeping through cotton dresses with unseemly intimacy, then disappearing into the utter blackness.

Everyone grows old but not everyone grows up.

Precious jewel, you glow, you shine, reflecting all the good things in the world. Just look at yourself.

In spite of everything that was done to me and my race, in spite of the adversity and the bitter moments, again we rise.

When I love somebody, I like him to be around; I like him to take me out to dinner; I like to look at the sunset with him. But if not, I love him and I hope he's looking at the same sun I am. Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age. Some of this wisdom came to me after I was 50 or 60.

One isn't born with courage. One develops it by doing small courageous things-in the way that if one sets out to pick up a 100-pound bag of rice, one would be advised to start with a five-pound bag, then 10 pounds, then 20 pounds, and so forth, until one builds up enough muscle to lift the 100-pound bag. It's the same way with courage. You do small courageous things that require some mental and spiritual exertion.

Life is a gift, and i try to respond with grace and courtesy.

I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at commensurate speed.

You think you may not be heard. Speak anyway.

A single fantasy can transform a million realities.

No human being can be more human than another human being. I liberate you from my ignorance.

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

I am convinced that courage is the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue consistently. You can be kind for a while; you can be generous for a while; you can be just for a while, or merciful for a while, even loving for a while. But it is only with courage that you can be persistently and insistently kind and generous and fair.

My entire stay there [high school] might have been time lost if it hadn't been for the unique personality of a brilliant teacher. Miss Kirwin was that rare educator who was in love with information. I will always believe that her love of teaching came not so much from her liking for students but from her desire to make sure that some of the things she knew would find repositories so that they could be shared again.

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.

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

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

We must be warriors in the struggle against ignorance

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: 'I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.'

Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight.

Every experience shapes your writing, being stuck in a car on a lonely bridge, or dancing at a prom, being the it girl on the beach, all of those things influence your life, they influence how you write, and the topics you choose to write about.

I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money.' Yes, I think everybody should be paid handsomely; I insist on it, and I pay people who work for me, or with me, handsomely.

Christians already? It seems to me that it takes a lifetime of work.

I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.

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

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

Even here in America, we felt the cool, refreshing breeze of freedom when Nelson Mandela took the seat of Presidency in his country where formerly he was not even allowed to vote. We were enlarged by tears of pride as we saw Nelson Mandela's former prison guards invited, courteously, by him to watch from the front rows his inauguration.

It's very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race.

If more Africans had eaten missionaries, the continent would be in better shape.

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.

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

As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good.

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