225 Maya Angelou Quotes To Do Better In Life
Famous Maya Angelou Inspirational Quotes About Love And Life
“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.”
– Maya Angelou
Famous Maya Angelou Inspirational Quotes To Do Better In Life: Marguerite Annie Johnson, popularly known as Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American poet, celebrated author, and civil rights, activist. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees.
She also won two NAACP Image Awards for her outstanding literary work. Angelou was also an actress, screenwriter, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. She was respected as a spokesperson for Black people and women, and her works have been considered a defense of Black culture.
In 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama awarded her the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the country’s highest civilian honors for her achievements. Maya Angelou’s life was a blatant example of continuous struggle, perseverance, and confidence. Her words convey a deep message and are still inspiring to the people of every generation. Enjoy these words of wisdom!
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.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I’m praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I’m grateful that I’m heard.
– Maya Angelou
Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence—neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish—it is an imponderably valuable gift.
– Maya Angelou
Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your mind to the wonders of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself.
– Maya Angelou
You only are free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.
– Maya Angelou
Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold but so does a hard-boiled egg.
– Maya Angelou
You don’t need another person, place, or thing to make you whole. God already did that. Your job is to know it.
– Maya Angelou
I learned that to be charitable with gestures and words can bring enormous joy and repair injured feelings.
– Maya Angelou
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
– Maya Angelou
The only way you can be a mark is if you want something for nothing. If you’re greedy, you’re set up.
– Maya Angelou
Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.
– Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.
– Maya Angelou
Believe people when they tell you who they are. They know themselves better than you.
– Maya Angelou
If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.
– Maya Angelou
It’s hard to make the prettiest clothes fit a miserable man.
– Maya Angelou
I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.
– Maya Angelou
Let nothing dim the light that shines from within.
– Maya Angelou
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Maya Angelou Quotes About Love And Life With Pictures
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.
– Maya Angelou
What I really would like said about me is that I dared to love. By love, I mean that condition in the human spirit so profound it encourages us to develop courage and build bridges, and then to trust those bridges and cross the bridges in attempts to reach other human beings.
– Maya Angelou
Happiness is a chance to talk to a friend, to hear good music, to have a good glass of wine. Happiness is a chance to be myself and to find people with whom I agree or who I don’t agree but I can learn something.
– Maya Angelou
I believe that people want the scent of love, more than anything else. And I don’t mean sentimentality, I don’t mean mush. I mean that idea, that human beings are more alike than we are different.
– Maya Angelou
There is nothing a person can’t do, and there should be nothing a human being didn’t care about. It was the most positive encouragement I could have hoped for.
– Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
– Maya Angelou
If I am going to do the most difficult and frightening thing – dying – is it possible that I could do some difficult and impossible things that are good?
– Maya Angelou
Take as much time as you need to make up your mind, but once it is made up, step out on your decision like it’s something you want.
– Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug or just a friendly pat on the back.
– Maya Angelou
The most difficult thing in the world, it seems to me, is to realize that I am a child of God; to keep that in my mind all the time.
– Maya Angelou
The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society.
– Maya Angelou
We need to not be in denial about what we’ve done, what we’ve come through. It will help us if we all do that.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.
– Maya Angelou
We are not just flesh and blood. And our hungers are not going to be set aside as just flesh and blood.
– Maya Angelou
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
– Maya Angelou
The truth is, right may not be expedient. It may not be profitable, but it will satisfy your soul.
– Maya Angelou
I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings.
– Maya Angelou
Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.
– Maya Angelou
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
– Maya Angelou
I believe that every person is born with talent.
– Maya Angelou
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Inspiring Maya Angelou Quotes That Will Blow Your Mind
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.
– Maya Angelou
I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. So at this wonderful, young age of 65, I don’t know yet what the Lord has for me to do. I try to live up to the energy and to the calling, but I wouldn’t dare say I have even scratched the surface yet.
– Maya Angelou
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.
– Maya Angelou
I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I’m a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself – all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve.
– Maya Angelou
If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.
– Maya Angelou
It’s hard because people think they have something to lose and the truth is they have everything to gain in trying to love somebody.
– Maya Angelou
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!
– Maya Angelou
It’s very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race.
– Maya Angelou
The root cause of all the problems we have in the world today is ignorance of course. But most, polarization.
– Maya Angelou
If I’m here, I’ll be trying to be a better human being, a better writer, a better friend, and a better beloved.
– Maya Angelou
I had to trust life since I was young enough to believe that life loved the person who dared to live it.
– Maya Angelou
No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
– Maya Angelou
I am not competing with anyone other than myself. I want to be excellent at whatever I do.
– Maya Angelou
I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world’s variety and uniqueness.
– Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life”.
– Maya Angelou
I want you to learn that you cannot have anything without working for it.
– Maya Angelou
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go’.
– Maya Angelou
At, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.
– Maya Angelou
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Inspirational Maya Angelou Quotes About Growth In Life
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.
– Maya Angelou
If the door has been opened and I’ve been invited, or if I’m not invited and I somehow know I’m supposed to go in there, I put myself together and go in, praying all the while. I try to learn something before I go in. I try to show some respect for the place I’m going into.
– Maya Angelou
In the latter years of your life, your happiness and your self-esteem will be determined by the mountains you surmounted, the valleys you climbed out of, and the life and/or career that you forged for yourself.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. It would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends, and living our lives.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
Don’t do anything that you think is wrong. Just do what you think is right, and then be ready to back it up even with your life.
– Maya Angelou
I think we have systematically and critically harmed ourselves and many young people by advising them not to try things.
– Maya Angelou
Those who have something to say accept the fact that that’s lonely. One already knows that there will be adversaries.
– Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.
– Maya Angelou
There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.
– Maya Angelou
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.
– Maya Angelou
I’m happy…I laugh as much as I can and cry when I have to, without apology. I think that’s happy.
– Maya Angelou
This is what I am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth.
– Maya Angelou
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
– Maya Angelou
I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
– Maya Angelou
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
– Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.
– Maya Angelou
I learned that a friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.
– Maya Angelou
Most Famous Maya Angelou Quotes About Strong Women
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.
– Maya Angelou
I have enough of life in me to make somebody jealous enough to want to knock me down. I have so much courage in me that I have the effrontery, the incredible gall to stand up. That’s it. That’s how you get to know who you are.
– Maya Angelou
I know that I’m not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don’t know how not to.
– Maya Angelou
When teachers or people in authority put me down or in one way or another tried to make me feel less than equal to what they thought I should be – my mother was on my side. It was amazing.
– Maya Angelou
You have to deal with what you encounter. But you must not be reduced. And so a way not to be reduced is don’t whine! Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
The sadness of the women’s movement is that they don’t allow the necessity of love. See, I don’t personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.
– Maya Angelou
Courage allows the successful woman to fail – and to learn powerful lessons from the failure – so that in the end, she didn’t fail at all.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.
– Maya Angelou
Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.
– Maya Angelou
The woman who truly intends to live a good life is already living phenomenally since intent is part of the achievement.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.
– Maya Angelou
A woman’s heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.
– Maya Angelou
Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.
– Maya Angelou
I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.
– Maya Angelou
She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.
– Maya Angelou
Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!
– Maya Angelou
Best Quotes By Maya Angelou About Struggle And Strength
We need to remember to teach our children that solitude can be a much-to-be-desired condition. Not only is it acceptable to be alone; at times it is positively to be wished for…..In the silence, we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves to ourselves, and in the quietude, we may even hear the voice of God.
– Maya Angelou
I not only have the right to stand up for myself, but I have the responsibility. I can’t ask somebody else to stand up for me if I won’t stand up for myself. And once you stand up for yourself, you’d be surprised that people say, “Can I be of help?”.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn’t run away – I rose right where I’d been knocked down. And then that’s how you get to know yourself.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
I do hope that young men and women will start to think for themselves and start to take responsibility for their own thoughts.
– Maya Angelou
Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight.
– Maya Angelou
We must insist that the men and women who expect to lead us recognize the true desires of those who are being led.
– Maya Angelou
A leader sees greatness in other people. He nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.
– Maya Angelou
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
– Maya Angelou
Grace is like a lake of drinkable water right outside your door. But you stay inside and die of thirst.
– Maya Angelou
It’s the fire in my eyes, and the flash of my teeth, the swing in my waist, and the joy in my feet.
– Maya Angelou
Take a day to heal from the lies you’ve told yourself and the ones that have been told to you.
– Maya Angelou
The wise woman thinks twice and speaks once or, better yet, does not speak at all.
– Maya Angelou
There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.
– Maya Angelou
Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world but has not solved one yet.
– Maya Angelou
Whining lets the brute know there’s a victim for him in the neighborhood.
– Maya Angelou
The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.
– Maya Angelou
Motivational Maya Angelou Quotes That Will Make Your Day
The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.
– Maya Angelou
If a person – any human being – is told often enough, “You are nothing. You are nothing. You account for nothing. You count for nothing. You are less than a human being. I have no visibility of you”, the person finally begins to believe it.
– Maya Angelou
I believe what I have to say is important, and I believe the people coming to hear me are important, and so the occasion of itself alone has an importance, which forces me to stare down my nerves.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning ‘Good morning’ at total strangers.
– Maya Angelou
We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.
– Maya Angelou
In the flush of love’s light, we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.
– Maya Angelou
Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, ‘I’m going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that’s tough. I am going to snow anyway.’
– Maya Angelou
Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.
– Maya Angelou
All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us all that we are more alike than we are unalike.
– Maya Angelou
When you know you are of worth — not asking it but knowing it — you walk into a room with a particular power.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
– Maya Angelou
No human being can be more human than another human being. I liberate you from my ignorance.
– Maya Angelou
If you’re going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can’t be erased.
– Maya Angelou
Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more.
– Maya Angelou
I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love.
– Maya Angelou
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
– Maya Angelou
All knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market.
– Maya Angelou
Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.
– Maya Angelou
Nobody can enjoy unless we all enjoy, truly enjoy.
– Maya Angelou
Inspiring Maya Angelou Quotes To Elevate Your Perspective
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.
– Maya Angelou
I wish we could stop the little lies. I don’t mean that one has to be brutally frank. I don’t believe that we should be brutal about anything, however, it is wonderfully liberating, to be honest. One does not have to tell all that one knows, but we should be careful what we say is the truth.
– Maya Angelou
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That’s why it’s important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are.
– Maya Angelou
Your reputation is the most important thing you’ll ever have. Not clothes, nor money, not the big cars you may drive. If your reputation is good, you can achieve anything you want in the world.
– Maya Angelou
It is better to control oneself, if one can, and not hit back. But on certain occasions, it is imperative to defend oneself. I don’t think it’s fair to ask anybody not to defend herself or himself.
– Maya Angelou
Human beings are like some plants. If we pause a few seconds in our journey, we begin setting down roots, tendrils that entangle other people as we ourselves are entangled.
– Maya Angelou
If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you will look forward, do so prayerfully. But the wisest course would be to be present in the present gratefully.
– Maya Angelou
My life has been long and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring still.
– Maya Angelou
I looked up the way I was going and back the way I come and since I wasn’t satisfied I stepped off and [found] me a new path.
– Maya Angelou
Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.
– Maya Angelou
It’s very hard for adults to maintain respect and romance so that a love affair can be sustained over years.
– Maya Angelou
I encourage courtesy. To accept nothing less than courtesy, and to give nothing less than courtesy.
– Maya Angelou
I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people.
– Maya Angelou
We are here to love each other. That is why you are alive. That is what life is for.
– Maya Angelou
I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.
– Maya Angelou
Listen to yourself and in that quietude, you might hear the voice of God.
– Maya Angelou
Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
– Maya Angelou
Talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it.
– Maya Angelou
When was the last time anyone told you how important you are?
– Maya Angelou
I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
– Maya Angelou
Thought-Provoking Quotes From Maya Angelou With Images
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.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
All my work, my life, everything I do is about survival, not just bare, awful, plodding survival, but survival with grace and faith. While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
I think the more we know the better we are. I mean not just facts. The more we know about each other, the closer we are to learn something about ourselves.
– Maya Angelou
They may have forgotten how badly they treated you, or they may pretend that they have forgotten. But watch: They will come back to you.
– Maya Angelou
In order to win, we pay with energy and effort, and discipline. If we lose, we pay in disappointment, discontent, and lack of fulfillment.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.
– Maya Angelou
I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity, is daring to dare.
– Maya Angelou
The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don’t know my story.
– Maya Angelou
You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.
– Maya Angelou
If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
– Maya Angelou
Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.
– Maya Angelou
When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time.
– Maya Angelou
I know for sure that love saves me and that it is here to save us all.
– Maya Angelou
Always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy.
– Maya Angelou
To those who have given up on love: I say, “Trust life a little bit”.
– Maya Angelou
I do my best because I’m counting on you counting on me.
– Maya Angelou
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Short Maya Angelou Famous Quotes To Expand Your Mind
The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.
– Maya Angelou
If I could give you one thought, it would be to lift someone up. Lift a stranger up – lift her up. I would ask you, mother and father, brother and sister, lovers, mother and daughter, father and son, lift someone. The very idea of lifting someone up will lift you, as well.
– Maya Angelou
I wish that we could look into each other’s faces, in each other’s eyes, and see our own selves. I hope that the children have not been so scarred by their upbringing that they only think fear when they see someone else who looks separate from them.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
I find relief from the questions only when I concede that I am not obliged to know everything. I remind myself it is sufficient to know what I know, and that what I know, may not always be true.
– Maya Angelou
Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.
– Maya Angelou
At fifteen, life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.
– Maya Angelou
Precious jewel, you glow, you shine, reflecting all the good things in the world. Just look at yourself.
– Maya Angelou
In all my work what I try to say is that as human beings we are more alike than we are unalike.
– Maya Angelou
When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe.
– Maya Angelou
I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.
– Maya Angelou
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
– Maya Angelou
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.
– Maya Angelou
If we lose love and self-respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
– Maya Angelou
When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.
– Maya Angelou
There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.
– Maya Angelou
Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.
– Maya Angelou
I did then what I knew best, when I knew better, I did better.
– Maya Angelou
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Deep Quotes By Maya Angelou To Inspire Everyone
Joy is a freedom. It helps a person to find his or her own liberation. The person who is joyous takes responsibility for the time he/she takes up and the space that he/she occupies. You share it! Some of you have it … you share it! That is what joy is! When you continue to give it away you will still have so much more of it.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate – thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.
– Maya Angelou
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.
– Maya Angelou
I do not trust people who don’t love themselves and yet tell me, ‘I love you.’ There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.
– Maya Angelou
What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.
– Maya Angelou
First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.
– Maya Angelou
My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked, a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.
– Maya Angelou
You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise!
– Maya Angelou
It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can’t do anything with that except do it.
– Maya Angelou
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
– Maya Angelou
When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness… all the good things.
– Maya Angelou
If you’re always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.
– Maya Angelou
All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.
– Maya Angelou
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.
– Maya Angelou
How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!
– Maya Angelou
A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
– Maya Angelou
The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.
– Maya Angelou
The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.
– Maya Angelou
This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.
– Maya Angelou
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Maya Angelou is no more in this mortal world but her legacy still lives. Her inspiring poems and powerful sayings instill rays of hope in the heart of millions even today. Everyone could learn many life lessons from her promising life. We hope you have liked these inspiring Maya Angelou quotations. Feel free to share her famous quotes with your loved ones to boost their morale.
“Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much but they can’t touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them they say they still can’t see. I say, it’s in the arch of my back, the sun of my smile, the ride of my breasts, the grace of my style. I’m a woman. Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, that’s me.”
– Maya Angelou