Maya Angelou Quotes

The truth brings the past into the present and prepares us for the future. That's what truth does

When we decide to be happy we accept the responsibility to bring happiness to someone else.

Life loves the person who dares to live it.

My son is the best thing that ever happened to me. And through me - to a lot of people.

I am a woman phenomenally, phenomenal woman that is your grandmother, that is your mother, that is your sister, that is you and that is me.

Would you deny your son or your daughter the ecstasy of finding someone to love?

The most noble cause known to man is the liberation of the human mind and spirit.

I think we have systematically and critically harmed ourselves and many young people by advising them not to try things.

Each of us has a responsibility for being alive: one responsibility to creation, of which we are a part, another to the creator a debt we repay by trying to extend our areas of comprehension.

Listen to some good poetry. You see? It keeps us from thinking we are only what our blatant appetites describe us as.

I wouldn't trade anything for my story now.

I know for sure that love saves me and that it is here to save us all.

Education helps one case cease being intimidated by strange situations.

Love recognizes no barriers.

Shakespeare must be a black girl.

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

When I passed forty I dropped pretense, 'cause men like women who got some sense.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

I agreed a long time ago, I would not live at any cost. If I am moved or forced away from what I think is the right thing, I will not do it.

We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.

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

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

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory.

I had to trust life and believe that life loved the person who dared to live it.

Being a woman is hard work.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

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

We are missing Michael. But we do know we had him, and we are the world.

Everybody in the world wants the same thing...to be needed...a job that he/she can do well...to love somebody...Everybody...There's no mystery.

Tragedy, no matter how sad, becomes boring to those not caught in its addictive caress.

I don't think there's such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

The world had taken a deep breath and was having doubts about continuing to revolve.

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.

Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication.

Life loves the liver of it.

Laugh as often as possible. You must. Because the world will offer you every reason to weep. So as often as possible, you laugh. That, I think, is part of the Great Love.

The area where we are the greatest is the area in which we inspire, encourage and connect with another human being.

Troubles are a blessing that force you to change, to believe.

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.'

Hope does not take away your problems. It can lift you above them.

You build your 'COURAGE MUSCLE' daily, by being courageous in little things. Just do right.

Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So, to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise.

Don't face the day until you've faced God.

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

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings.

Age is nothing; waking up is everything.

No one comes from the earth like grass. We come like trees. We all have roots.

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

Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives.

At our best, we are all teachers