Maya Angelou Quotes

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody."

- Maya Angelou

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

- Maya Angelou

"You can't really know where you are going until you know where you have been."

- Maya Angelou

"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."

- 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

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

- Maya Angelou

"The children to whom we read simple stories may or may not show gratitude, but each boon we give strengthens the pillars of the world."

- Maya Angelou

"Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet."

- Maya Angelou

"Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!"

- Maya Angelou

"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."

- Maya Angelou

"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

"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it."

- 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 you."

- Maya Angelou

"No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself."

- 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

"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities."

- Maya Angelou

"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

"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

"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

"Someone was hurt before you, wronged before you, hungry before you, frightened before you, beaten before you, humiliated before you, raped before you? yet, someone survived? You can do anything you choose to do."

- Maya Angelou

"When I forgive other people, I let them go, I free them from my ignorance. And as soon as I do, I feel lighter, brighter and better."

- Maya Angelou

"My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness."

- Maya Angelou

"I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness."

- Maya Angelou

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

- Maya Angelou

"Determine to live life with flair and laughter."

- Maya Angelou

"The honorary duty of a human being is to love."

- Maya Angelou

"Be a rainbow in someone else's cloud."

- Maya Angelou

"Everybody is worth everything."

- Maya Angelou

"When you learn, teach, when you get, give."

- Maya Angelou

"Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant."

- Maya Angelou

"The best candy shop a child can be left alone in, is the library."

- Maya Angelou

"This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one before."

- Maya Angelou

"Nothing will work unless you do."

- Maya Angelou

"If someone shows you who they really are, believe them."

- Maya Angelou

"I believe that every person is born with talent."

- Maya Angelou

"You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self."

- Maya Angelou

"We are only as blind as we want to be."

- 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

"Listen to yourself and, in that quietude, you might hear the voice of God."

- Maya Angelou

"Grace is like a lake of drinkable water right outside your door. But you stay inside and die of thirst."

- 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

"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

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

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"Forgiving is one of the greatest gifts that I can give myself."

- Maya Angelou

"Making a living is not the same thing as making a life."

- 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

"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

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, "I'm with you kid. Let's go."

- 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

"I do my best because I'm counting on you counting on me."

- Maya Angelou

"Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option."

- 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

"Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art."

- 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

"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

"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

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

- 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

"When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe."

- Maya Angelou

"If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?"

- Maya Angelou

"Giving liberates the soul of the giver."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time."

- Maya Angelou

"By love I don't mean indulgence. I do not mean sentimentality. And in this instance, I don't even mean romance. I mean that condition that allowed humans to dream of God. That is love, and it's so much larger than anything I can conceive."

- Maya Angelou

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

- 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

"If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die."

- Maya Angelou

"If you want to liberate someone, love them, not be in love with them. That's dangerous."

- Maya Angelou

"Whining lets the brute know there's a victim for him in the neighborhood."

- 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

"I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision."

- 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

"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

"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."

- 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 is always about the work. 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

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

- 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

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

- 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

"I am not competing with anyone other than myself. I want to be excellent at whatever I do."

- Maya Angelou

"I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare."

- 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

"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."

- Maya Angelou

"I try to see every day as a celebration."

- Maya Angelou

"Be present in all things and thankful for all things."

- Maya Angelou

"Joy is a freedom. When you continue to give it away you will still have so much more of it."

- Maya Angelou

"Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good."

- Maya Angelou

"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

"Happiness is a chance to talk to a friend, to hear good music, to have a good glass of wine."

- Maya Angelou

"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

"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

"When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed."

- Maya Angelou

"When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness, all the good things."

- Maya Angelou

"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

"Be present in all things and thankful for all things."

- Maya Angelou

"A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face."

- Maya Angelou

"The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear."

- 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

"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

"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

"A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim."

- 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

"God puts rainbows in the clouds, so that each of us in the dreariest and most dreaded moments can see a possibility of hope."

- 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

"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

"I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory."

- 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

"Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible."

- Maya Angelou

"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."

- Maya Angelou