Maya Angelou Quotes - 53 quotes

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Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was a celebrated American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, starting with “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (1969), which brought her international acclaim. She was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in S... show more

quote icon All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us all that we are more alike than we are unalike.

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quote icon We delight in the beauty of butterfly, rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty*

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quote icon I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me "I love you."

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quote icon There is an African saying which is: "Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt."

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quote icon A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. ... Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.

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quote icon Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

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quote icon 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.

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quote icon 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.

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quote icon There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

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quote icon You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud. Do not complain. Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.

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quote icon Never whine. Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood.

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quote icon There are certain artists who belong to all the people, everywhere, all the time. The list of singers, musicians, and poets must include David the harpist from the Old Testament, Aesop the Storyteller, Omar Khayyam the Tent Maker, Shakespeare the Bard of Avon, Louis Armstrong the genius of New Orleans, Om Kalsoum the soul of Egypt, Frank Sinatra, Mahalia Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles...Celia Cruz...

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quote icon I know when it's the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know when it’s the best I can do. I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, No. No, I’m finished. Bye. And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.

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quote icon Years ago I read a man named Machado de Assis who wrote a book called Dom Casmurro. Machado de Assis is a South American writer — black father, Portuguese mother — writing in 1865, say. I thought the book was very nice. Then I went back and read the book and said, Hmm. I didn’t realize all that was in that book. Then I read it again, and again, and I came to the conclusion that what Machado de Assis had done for me was almost a trick: he had beckoned me onto the beach to watch a sunset. And I had watched the sunset with pleasure. When I turned around to come back in I found that the tide had come in over my head. That’s when I decided to write.

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quote icon Yes. When I’m writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we’re capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness.

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quote icon We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life.

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quote icon If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.

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quote icon Love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free. A Brave and Startling Truth.

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quote icon When we come to it We must confess that we are the possible We are the miraculous, the true wonders of this world That is when, and only when We come to it.

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quote icon Your legacy is every life you've touched.

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quote icon People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.

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quote icon "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."

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quote icon If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.

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quote icon My dear, when people show you who they are, why don't you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times before you can see who they really are? Why can't you get it the first time?

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quote icon All information belongs to everybody all the time. It should be available. It should be accessible to the child, to the woman, to the man, to the old person, to the semiliterate, to the presidents of universities, to everyone. It should be open.

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quote icon 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.

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quote icon I'm an American, and most of the time proud of it. Even when I am displeased with what my country is doing, I am still an American who is displeased. And fortunately, being an American, I don't have to whimper, I don't have to whine, I have the right to protest, and I like that.

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quote icon You develop courage, the most important of all the virtues, because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.

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

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quote icon The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast.

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quote icon You don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking.

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quote icon At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

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quote icon I believe most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.

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quote icon Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

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quote icon You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

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quote icon Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.

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quote icon 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.

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quote icon You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

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quote icon I can become quite angry and burning in anger, but I have never been bitter. Bitterness is a corrosive, terrible acid. It just eats you and makes you sick.

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quote icon I always thought I could write because I loved to read so much.

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quote icon I still feel you should rock the boat. And if you're not in it, you should turn it over. But not unthinkingly. Protest without serious consideration is dangerous. You have to back up what you say. But once you find the truth, you ought to be prepared to stand on the street corner and use all your gifts to right the wrong.

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quote icon Nathaniel Hawthorne says, "Easy reading is damn hard writing." I try to pull the language into such a sharpness that it jumps off the page. It must look easy, but it takes me forever to get it to look so easy.

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

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quote icon 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.

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quote icon Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls.

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quote icon “Sister, there are people who went to sleep all over the world last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. Sister, those who expected to rise did not, their beds became their cooling boards, and their blankets became their winding sheets. And those dead folks would give anything, anything at all for just five minutes of this... So you watch yourself about complaining, Sister. 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.” Source: Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

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

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quote icon I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. 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. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

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quote icon I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. 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. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

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quote icon 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

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quote icon We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

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quote icon I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

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quote icon Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.

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