Maya Angelou Quotes

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

Everything costs and costs the earth.

I hadn't so much forgot as I couldn't bring myself to remember. Other things were more important.

He was a simple man who had no inferiority complex about his lack of education, and even more amazing no superiority complex because he had succeeded despite that lack.

If you have, give. If you learn, teach.

Sometimes you have to defend yourself from yourself. When

Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.

The dread of futility has been my life-long plague.

We grow despite the horror that we feed upon our own tomorrow. We grow.

Although there was always generosity in the Negro neighborhood, it was indulged on pain of sacrifice. Whatever was given by Black people to other Blacks was most probably needed as desperately by the donor as by the receiver. A fact which made the giving or receiving a rich exchange.

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.

Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.

We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.

If we are honest and fair, then we are known by that. If we are not, alas, we are known by that as well. What we want to do is do right, but you have to say it, you have to show it, and not stop.

Ev'ry Voice and Sing" - words by James Weldon Johnson and music by J. Rosamond Johnson. Copyright by Edward B. Marks Music Corporation. Used by permission.

Each of us, famous or infamous, is a role model for somebody, and if we aren't, we should behave as though we are
cheerful, kind, loving, courteous. Because you can be sure someone is watching and taking deliberate and diligent notes.

You are very kind and very intelligent and those elements are not always found together. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, and my mother - yes, you belong in that category. Here, give me a kiss.

Dare to let your dreams reach beyond you.

I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.

Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops.

Encouragement to all women is - let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let's see if we can't prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness.

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is.

We need to remember that we are all created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.

I, with millions of other Americans, have the same dream Martin Luther King Jr. had; when I wake up I wish some of the things I dreamt would be true. I wish that little black and white boys and girls would hold hands without being shocked at their nearness to each other and say in a natural way, we have overcome.

When you do nothing you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.

I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.

I might have it at six-fifteen a.m. just as soon as I get in, but usually it's about eleven o'clock when I'll have a glass of sherry.

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.

Open your heart, fling your hopes high and set your dreams aloft. I am here to hold your hand.

Take the blinders from your vision take the padding from your ears and confess you've heard me crying and admit you've seen my tears.

the true nature of the human heart is as whimsical as spring weather. All signals may aim toward a fall of rain when suddenly the skies will clear.

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.

To those who are given much, much is expected.

Moderation in all things. And even moderation in moderation. Don't get too much moderation, you know?

The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.
They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside the River.

be a rainbow in someone else's cloude

I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK.

To those who have given up on love: I say, Trust life a little bit.

Shine on me, sunshine Rain on me, rain Fall softly, dewdrops And cool my brow again. Storm, blow me from here With your fiercest wind Let me float across the sky 'Til I can rest again. Fall gently, snowflakes Cover me with white Cold icy kisses and Let me rest tonight. Sun, rain, curving sky Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone Star shine, moon glow You're all that I can call my own.

Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.

Change everything you don't like about your life. But when you come to a thing you can't change, then change the way you think about it. You'll see it new, and maybe a new way to change it. The

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.

I love wisdom. And 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.

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.

Trust your brain to suggest a solution, then have the courage to follow through.

This bed yawns
beneath the weight
of our absent selves.

I laughed too, but not at the hateful jokes made on my people.I laughed because, except that she was white, the big movie star looked just like my mother. Except that she lived in a big mansion with thousands servants. she lived just like my mother. And it was funny to think of the whitefolks' not knowing that the woman they were adoring could be my mother's twin, except that she was white and my mother was prettier. Much prettier.

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

'God put the rainbow in the clouds, not just in the sky' ... It is wise to realize we already have rainbows in our clouds, or we wouldn't be here. If the rainbow is in the clouds, then in the worst of time, there is the possibility of seeing hope ... We can say 'I can be a rainbow in the cloud for someone yet to be.' That may be our calling.

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

Not everything you do is going to be a masterpiece, but you get art there and you try and sometimes it really happens. The other times you're just stretching your soul.

I learned to love my son without wanting to possess him and I learned how to teach him to teach himself.

I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. 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.

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.

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

Whether our new start was going to end in success or failure didn't cross my mind. What I did know, and know consciously, was that it was already exciting.

I am convinced that most people do not grow up ... We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.

For years, I had known that there is nothing idle about curiosity, despite the fact that the two words are often used in tandem. Curiosity fidgets, is hard to satisfy, looks for answers even before forming questions.

I have waited
toes curled, hat rolled
heart and genitals
in hand
on the back porches
of forever
in the kitchens and fields
of rejections
on the cold marble steps
of America's White Out-House
in the drop seats of buses
and the open flies of war

If you want to stay around here like death eating a soda cracker, that's your business.

A woman who is convinced that she deserves to accept only the best challenges herself to give the best. Then she is living phenomenally.

I never had that feeling that I had to carry the weight of somebody's ignorance around with me. And that was true for racists who wanted to use the 'n' word when talking about me or about my people, or the stupidity of people who really wanted to belittle other folks because they weren't pretty or they weren't rich or they weren't clever.

You have tried to destroy me
and though I perish daily,

I shall not be moved.

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people - one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion's den. You can't just play around with all those big cats - you've got to take somebody on.

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

This conference ? of, for and about women ? is, in itself, a rainbow in the clouds. When numerous women come together and show that they care, not only for themselves but also for each other, that is the occasion when a rainbow is shining down on somebody else.

Love builds up the broken wall and straightens the crooked path.
Love keeps the stars in the firmament and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides.
Each of us is created of it and I suspect each of us was created for it

Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you.

There is a kind of strength that is almost frightening in Black women. It's as if a steel rod runs right through the head down to the feet.

Love life. Engage in it. Give it all you've got. Love it with a passion because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.

It's very hard for adults to maintain respect and romance so that a love affair can be sustained over years.

Living well is an art which can be developed.

I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned affectation. It's like decal stuck up on a person.

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

Life is a glorious banquet, a limitless and delicious buffet.

I made bitterness into a wad and swallowed it. I

I want you to write down your blessings.

Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.

We are here to love each other.
That is why you are alive.
That is what life is for.

Being a woman is hard work.

If you're for the right thing, you do it without thinking.

Every day offers you 10,000 reasons to cry, but if you can find just one reason to laugh then you will be all right.

I've tried to be totally present, so that when I'm finished with a piece of work, I'm finished ... The work, once completed, does not need me. The work I'm working on needs my total concentration. The one that's finished doesn't belong to me anymore. It belongs to itself.

If you're serious, you really understand that it's important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you're the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you're funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

I was grateful to see President Obama's victory speech. I was over the moon to see the audience. There were about 60 percent white voters the other 40 percent were African Americans, Asian, Spanish speaking etc. I wept at that spectacle, it told me that the pundits that continue in our country to try to polarize us, to keep us apart, are not succeeding. Americans are waking up not only to the truth, but the truth in each other. Hallelujah!

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.
(Popular misquote of "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.")

I thought if war did not include killing, I'd like to see one every year.

The whites were really brutishly ignorant, blitheringly, so they killed people sometimes - just came into the African-American community and maimed people because they didn't agree with God's choice for the colors of the people's skin.

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 of you.

I think I have had so much blessing - I've had my brother, who was brilliant - I think my family came closest to making a genius when they made my brother - Bailey was just all of that. He loved me.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

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

In my twenties in San Francisco I became a sophisticate and an acting agnostic. It wasn't that I had stopped believing in God; it's just that God didn't seem to be around the neighborhoods I frequented.

I said, "What do I think? That's what I'm asking you? What is there to think?" "Looks like he wants you to be his valentine." "Louise, I can read. But what does it mean?" "Oh, you know. His valentine. His love." There was that hateful word again. That treacherous word that yawned up at you like a volcano. "Well, I won't. Most decidedly I won't. Not ever again." "Have you been his valentine before? What do you mean never again?" I couldn't lie to my friend and I wasn't about to freshen old ghosts. "Well, don't answer him then, and that's the end of it." I was a little relieved that she thought it could be gotten rid of so quickly. I tore the note in half and gave her a part. Walking down the hill we minced the paper in a thousand shreds and gave it to the wind.

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

If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present ... gratefully.

I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

I find it very difficult to let a friend or beloved go into that country of no return. I answer the heroic question, "Death, where is thy sting?" with "It is here in my heart, and my mind, and my memories.

I was a dancer for many years. I was a premier dancer with 'Porgy and Bess,' the opera. And I taught dance some, in different places.