Quotes from Maya Angelou (Commemorating Maya Angelou)
“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”
“Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity.”
“All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike.”
“The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.”
“I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.”
“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
“A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy;
a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.”
“Nothing will work unless you do.”
“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
“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.”
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
“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.”
“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.’”
“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.”
“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.”
“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.”
“There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.”
“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”
“Politicians must set their aims for the high ground and according to our various leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, we will follow. Politicians must be told if they continue to sink into the mud of obscenity, they will proceed alone.”
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
“A black person grows up in this country and in many places―knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.”
“I’m working at trying to be a Christian, and that’s serious business. It’s like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy—it’s serious business.”
“I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings”.
“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.”
“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.”
“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”
“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.”
“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.”
“A cynical young person is almost the saddest sight to see, because it means that he or she has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.”
“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. “
“Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‘That’s life.’”
