Maya Angelou Quotes

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning... view

By: 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... view

By: Maya Angelou

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness... view

By: Maya Angelou

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry.. view

By: 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... view

By: 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... view

By: Maya Angelou

Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise... view

By: 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... view

By: Maya Angelou

Nothing will work unless you do... view

By: 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... view

By: Maya Angelou

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... view

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance... view

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: 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... view

By: Maya Angelou

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it... view

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth... view

By: 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... view

By: Maya Angelou

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time... view

By: Maya Angelou

While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man's humanity to man... view

By: Maya Angelou

Life loves the liver of it... view

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated... view

By: Maya Angelou

Effective action is always unjust... view

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

All great achievements require time... view

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him... view

By: Maya Angelou

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them... view

By: 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... view

By: Maya Angelou

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean... view

By: 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... view

By: Maya Angelou

For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place... view

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!.. view

By: Maya Angelou

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

By: Maya Angelou

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water... view

By: Maya Angelou