Best Maya Angelou Quotes

Some inspirational Maya Angelou quotes that will inspire you. Her original name was Marguerite Annie Johnson ,born 1928 and died 2014. Her poetry continues to inspire many and has no doubt changed many lives for the better.

Maya Angelou Quotes

• "The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God - if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That's what I think."
  

• “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.”

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

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

• "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."

• "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."

• "It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength."

• "During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not."

• "I never had that feeling that I had to carry the weight of somebody's ignorance around with me. And that was true for racists who wanted to use the 'n' word when talking about me or about my people, or the stupidity of people who really wanted to belittle other folks because they weren't pretty or they weren't rich or they weren't clever."

• "All great achievements require time.

More Maya Angelou Quotes

• “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.”

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

• “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.”

• “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”

• “Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”

• “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.”

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

• “You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.”

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

• “The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”

Even More Maya Angelou Quotes

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

• “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.”

• “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!”

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

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

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

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

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

• "You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise."

• “When you learn, teach, when you get, give.”
  

• “A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face.”

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