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.”

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

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou

“If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.”
― Maya Angelou

“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”
― Maya Angelou

“I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. 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. I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life." I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. 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. 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.”
― Maya Angelou

“The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
― Maya Angelou

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”
― Maya Angelou

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
― Maya Angelou

“I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.”
― 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

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

“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

“Courage: the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.”
― Maya Angelou

“Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!”
― Maya Angelou

“If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?”
― Maya Angelou

“Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.”
― Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women

“Be a rainbow in someone else's cloud.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.”
― Maya Angelou

“Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.”
― 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

“When you know better you do better.”
― Maya Angelou

“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.”
― Maya Angelou

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
― Maya Angelou

“There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.”
― 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.”
― 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

“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. ”
― 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

“Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.”
― Maya Angelou

“When you learn, teach, when you get, give.”
― Maya Angelou

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”
― Maya Angelou

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”
― Maya Angelou

“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”
― Maya Angelou

“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”
― Maya Angelou

“I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.”
― 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

“We need much less than we think we need.”
― Maya Angelou

“Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.”
― 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

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

“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“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

“I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. 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

“Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.”
― Maya Angelou

“When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin'."
I'm whispering "I was lost,
Now I'm found and forgiven."

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble
and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
And need His strength to carry on.

When I say. "I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
Who received God's good grace, somehow.”
― Maya Angelou

“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.”
― Maya Angelou

“Be present in all things and thankful for all things.”
― Maya Angelou

“The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don't know my story...”
― Maya Angelou

“I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'.”
― Maya Angelou

“When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe.”
― Maya Angelou

“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

“A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“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

“I sustain myself with the love of family.”
― 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, Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer

“I want to thank you, Lord, for life and all that's in it.
Thank you for the day and for the hour, and the minute. ”
― 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

“I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare.”
― Maya Angelou

“Nothing will work unless you do.”
― Maya Angelou

“To those who have given up on love: I say, "Trust life a little bit.”
― Maya Angelou

“If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.”
― Maya Angelou

“Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.”
― Maya Angelou

“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“I am a Woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal Woman,
that's me.”
― 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, Letter to My Daughter

Let's tell the truth to people. When people ask, 'How are you?' have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully. You must know, however, that people will start avaoiding you because, they, too, have knees that pain them and heads that hurt and they don't want to know about yours. But think of it this way: If people avoid you, you will have more time to meditate and do fine research on a cure for whatever truly afflicts you.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

 “No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.”
― Maya Angelou

“Touched by an Angel

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.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
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

“Some people cannot see a good thing when it is right here, right now. Others can sense a good thing coming when it is days, months, or miles away.”
― Maya Angelou

“Had I known that the heart breaks slowly, dismantling itself into unrecognizable plots of misery... had I known yet I would have loved you, your brash and insolent beauty, your heavy comedic face and knowledge of sweet delights, but from a distance I would have left you whole and wholly for the delectation of those who wanted more and cared less.”
― Maya Angelou, And Still I Rise

“If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.”
― Maya Angelou

“A woman who is convinced that she deserves to accept only the best challenges herself to give the best. Then she is living phenomenally.”
― Maya Angelou

“Success is loving life and daring to live it.”
― Maya Angelou

“All great achievements require time.”
― 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

“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

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
― Maya Angelou

“My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy.”
― Maya Angelou

“No one can take the place of a friend, no one.”
― Maya Angelou

“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,
of things unknown, but longed for still,
and his tune is heard on the distant hill,
for the caged bird sings of freedom.”
― Maya Angelou

“Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it.”
― Maya Angelou

“The sisters and brothers that you meet give you the materials which your character uses to build itself. It is said that some people are born great, others achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. In truth, the ways in which your character is built have to do with all three of those. Those around you, those you choose, and those who choose you.”
― Maya Angelou

“There were people who went to sleep last night,
poor and rich and white and black,
but they will never wake again.

And those dead folks would give anything at all
for just five minutes of this weather
or ten minutes of plowing.

So you watch yourself about complaining.

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.”
― Maya Angelou

“Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.”
― Maya Angelou

“Whining is not only graceless, but it can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift. ”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
― Maya Angelou

“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours.
In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.”
― Maya Angelou

“Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.”
― Maya Angelou

“The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry.”
― Maya Angelou

Anything that works against you can also work for you once you understand the Principle of Reverse.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“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

“There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.”
― Maya Angelou

“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”
― Maya Angelou

“Ain't nothin' to it, but to do it.”
― Maya Angelou

“Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
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

“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

“One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We cannot be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”
― Maya Angelou

“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.”
― 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 am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“Live as though life was created for you.”
― Maya Angelou

“Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives.”
― 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.”
― Maya Angelou

“Strong women- precious jewels all- their humanness is evident in their accessibility. We are able to enter into the spirit of these women and rejoice in their warmth and courage.”
― 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.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.”
― Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women

“Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.”
― Maya Angelou

“I’ve got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve,
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.”
― Maya Angelou, Life Doesn't Frighten Me

“The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind. ”
― Maya Angelou

“A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “The human heart...tells us that we are more alike than we are unalike.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“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

“While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated.”
― Maya Angelou

 “I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.”
― Maya Angelou

“When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness... all the good things.”
― Maya Angelou

“There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.”
― Maya Angelou

“We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.”
― Maya Angelou

“To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflict than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “Each of us, famous or infamous, is a role model for somebody, and if we aren't, we should behave as though we are -- cheerful, kind, loving, courteous. Because you can be sure someone is watching and taking deliberate and diligent notes.”
― Maya Angelou

 “It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me. ”
― Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women

 “Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.”
― Maya Angelou

 “When Great Trees Fall
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”
― Maya Angelou

“History with all its unending pain cannot be outlived, but faced with courage need not be lived again.”
― Maya Angelou

“We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.”
― Maya Angelou

 “We are all human; therefore, nothing human can be alien to us.”
― Maya Angelou

 “When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”
― Maya Angelou

 “That's what you want to do? Then nothing beats a trial but a failure. Give it everything you've got. I've told you many times, 'Cant do is like Dont Care.' Neither of them have a home.”
― Maya Angelou

 “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.”
― Maya Angelou

“Don't let the man bring you down.”
― Maya Angelou, The Heart of a Woman

“I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people.”
― Maya Angelou

“To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“I do not need to know all things. I remind myself that it is sufficient that I know what I know and know that without believing that I will always know what I know or that what I know will always be true.”
― Maya Angelou

“What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’.... And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.”
― Maya Angelou

“Making a decision to write was a lot like deciding to jump into a frozen lake.”
― Maya Angelou

“I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness.”
― Maya Angelou

“Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows me to survive, and better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, and style.”
― Maya Angelou

“To those who are given much, much is expected.”
― Maya Angelou

“I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at commensurate speed.”
― Maya Angelou

“Just like moons and suns,
With certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.”
― Maya Angelou

“Life loves the liver of it.”
― 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.”
― Maya Angelou

“Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.”
― 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

 “We need to remember that we are all created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”
― Maya Angelou

 “Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “Women been gittin' pregnant ever since Eve ate that apple.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education. ”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!”
― Maya Angelou

 “In all the institutions I try to be present and accountable for all I do and leave undone. I know that eventually I shall have to be present and accountable n the presence of God. I do not wish to be found wanting.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

 “Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.”
― Maya Angelou

 “The charitable say in effect, 'I seem to have more than I need and you seem to have less than you need. I would like to share my excess with you.' Fine, if my excess is tangible, money or goods, and fine if not, for I learned that to be charitable with gestures and words can bring enormous joy and repair injured feelings.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

 “I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”
― Maya Angelou

 “If funky town was a trailerpark, this guy would be a double-wide.”
― Maya Angelou

 “Ritie, don't worry 'cause you ain't pretty. Plenty pretty women I seen digging ditches or worse. You smart. I swear to God, I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “When I am 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. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for wate it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language.”
― Maya Angelou

 “I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”
― Maya Angelou

 “You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.”
― Maya Angelou

 “Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it empowers us to develop courage; to trust that courage and build bridges with it;
to trust those bridges and cross over them so we can attempt to reach each other.”
― Maya Angelou

 “Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn't be taught to me at George Washington High School. ”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “I'm young as morning
and fresh as dew.
Everybody loves me
and so do you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Shall Not Be Moved

 “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 else'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.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

 “That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“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

 “You dwell in whitened castles
with deep and poisoned moats
and cannot hear the curses
which fill your children's throats.”
― Maya Angelou

 “A certain person wondered why
a big strong girl like me
wouldn't keep a job
which paid a normal salary.
I took my time to lead her
and to read her every page.
Even minimal people
can't survive on minimal wage.

A certain person wondered why
I wait all week for you.
I didn't have the words
to describe just what you do.
I said you had the motion
of the ocean in your walk,
and when you solve my riddles
you don't even have to talk.”
― Maya Angelou, I Shall Not Be Moved

 “A story went the rounds about a San Franciscan white matron who refused to sit beside a Negro civilian on the streetcar, even after he made room for her on the seat. Her explanation was that she would not sit beside a draft dodger who was a Negro as well. She added that the least he could do was fight for his country the way her son was fighting on Iwo Jima. The story said that the man pulled his body away from the window to show an armless sleeve. He said quietly and with great dignity, "Then ask your son to look around for my arm, which I left over there.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “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, Letter to My Daughter

 “In all my work what I try to say is that as human beings we are more alike than we are unalike.”
― Maya Angelou

 “If you only have one smile in you, give it to the people you love.”
― Maya Angelou

 “I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one's skin, at the extreme corners of one's eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

 “Still I'll rise.”
― Maya Angelou

 “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible…We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”
― Maya Angelou

 “The woman who survives intact and happy must be at once tender and tough.”
― 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

 “If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “You are the sum total of everything you've seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot- it's all right there.”
― Maya Angelou

 “Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

 “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

 “Mother's life flowed radiant. Flourescent-tipped waves on incoming tides.”
― 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

 “I've had rainbows in my clouds.”
― Maya Angelou

 “A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.
Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I
And the tree and stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The river sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing river and the wise rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the tree.
Today, the first and last of every tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.
Each of you, descendant of some passed on
Traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name,
You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca,
You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me,
Then forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of other seekers--
Desperate for gain, starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.”
― Maya Angelou

 “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
― Maya Angelou, The Complete Collected Poems

“I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.”
― Maya Angelou, Maya Angelou: Poems

“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.”
― Maya Angelou

“Segregation shaped me; education liberated me.”
― Maya Angelou

“No human being can be more human than another human being. I liberate you from my ignorance.”
― 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 speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition--about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive.”

“I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?”
― Maya Angelou

“When you do nothing you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.”
― Maya Angelou

“If you're for the right thing, you do it without thinking.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“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, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Life likes to be taken by the lapel and told, "I'm with you kid. Let's go!”
― Maya Angelou

“The world had taken a deep breath and was having doubts about continuing to revolve.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Achievement brings it own anticlimax.”
― Maya Angelou

“When members of a society wish to secure that society's rich heritage they cherish their arts and respect their artists. The esteem with which we regard the multiple cultures offered in our country enhances our possibilities for healthy survival and continued social development.”
― 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

“Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.”
― Maya Angelou

“She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Determine to live life with flair and laughter.”
― Maya Angelou

“I did what I knew.. when I knew better, I did better”
― Maya Angelou

“The intensity with which young people live demands that they "blank out" as often as possible.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life...her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Preach it, I say preach it.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure. . . Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”
― Maya Angelou

“I couldn't tell fact from fiction,
Or if the dream was true
My only sure prediction
In this world was you.
I'd touch your features inchly. Beard love and dared the cost, The sented spiel reeled me unreal And I found my senses lost.”
― 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.”
― 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, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of mans humanity to a man.”
― Maya Angelou

 “Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less lonely by your songs, or by the empty pots made less tragic by your tales?

If we were a people much given to revealing secrets, we might raise monuments and sacrifice to the memories of our poets, but slavery cured us of that weakness.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “If on Judgement Day I were summoned by St. Peter to give testimony to the used-to-be sheriff's act of kindness, I would be unable to say anything in his behalf. His confidence that my uncle and every other Black man who heard of the Klan's coming ride would scurry under their houses to hide in chicken droppings was too humiliating to hear. Without waiting for Momma's thanks, he rode out of the yard, sure that things were as they should be and that he was a gentle squire, saving those deserving serfs from the laws of the land, which he condoned.”
― Maya Angelou

 “All knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market.”
― Maya Angelou

 “Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaking need for an unshakable God. My pretty Black brother was my Kingdom Come.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “The dread of futility has been my life-long plague.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able to live at all. I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“The best candy shop a child can be left alone in, is the library”
― Maya Angelou

 “No, nobody but nobody can make it out here alone.”
― Maya Angelou, Maya Angelou: Poems

 “The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.”
― Maya Angelou

 “The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic admiration.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.”
― Maya Angelou

 “The city became for me the ideal of what I wanted to be as a grown-up. Friendly, but never gushing, cool but not frigid or distant, distinguished without the awful stiffness.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“As soon as healing takes place, go out and heal somebody else.”
― Maya Angelou

“Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “All I got to do is stay black and die.”
― 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

 “Does my sexiness upset you? / Does it come as a surprise / That I dance like I've got diamonds / At the meeting of my thighs?”
― Maya Angelou

“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. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

 “There is a true yearning to respond to the singing river and wise rock.”
― Maya Angelou

 “What sets one Southern town apart from another, or from a Northern town or hamlet, or city high-rise? The answer must be the experience shared between the unknowing majority (it) and the knowing minority (you). All of childhood's unanswered questions must finally be passed back to the town and answered there. Heroes and bogey men, values and dislikes, are first encountered and labeled in that early environment. In later years they change faces, places and maybe races, tactics, intensities and goals, but beneath those penetrable masks they wear forever the stocking-capped faces of childhood.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings