Maya Angelou Quotations | Page 5

We can be better, we can be wiser, we can be more kind. Yes we have to change. We have to grow up and stop acting like 10 years old. Yes there is much to do, much to see, much to go into.

Life loves the liver of it.

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.

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

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.

Anything that works against you can also work for you once you understand the Principle of Reverse.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it.

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

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

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.

When the storyteller tells the truth, she reminds us that human beings are more alike than unalike... A story is what it's like to be a human being-to be knocked down and to miraculously arise. Each one of us has arisen, awakened. We do rise.

The human heart is so delicate and sensitive that it always needs some tangible encouragement to prevent it from faltering in its labour.

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

If somebody is really trying to take your head off with a baseball bat - I don't know how long you're supposed to stand there and turn the other cheek, so he or she can get a better angle at taking your head off.

The honorary duty of a human being is to love.

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 our selves.

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.

I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.

The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry.

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.

We are only as blind as we want to be.

A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream.

It is sad but true that sometimes we need the tragedy to help us to see how human we are and how we are more alike than we are different.

Without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues.

Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives. The struggle for equality continues unabated, and the woman warrior who is armed with wit and courage will be among the first to celebrate victory.

I keep hitting the escape button but I am still here!

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.

When things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleep

I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere.

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

Not everything you do is going to be a masterpiece, but you get art there and you try and sometimes it really happens. The other times you’re just stretching your soul.

Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.

Don't face the day until you've faced God.

It's hard because people think they have something to lose and the truth is they have everything to gain in trying to love somebody.

Don't hesitate to learn the most painful aspects of our history, understand it.

I keep on dying, Because I love to live

Martin Luther King was a human being with a brilliant mind, a powerful heart, and insight, and courage and also with a sense of humor. So he was accessible.

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

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.

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

The truth is very important. No matter how negative it is, it is imperative that you learn the truth, not necessarily the facts. I mean, that, that can come, but facts can stand in front of the truth and almost obscure the truth. It is imperative that students learn the truth of our history.

We will sometimes have defeats in life but you can have defeats without being defeated, you could fail without being a failure. When you see failure and defeats as merely part of the process to get to when.

We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.

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.

Life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you.

It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats...

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

When you know better you do better.

I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'.

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.

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

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

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.

As a nurse, we have the opportunity to heal the heart, mind, soul and body of our patients, their families and ourselves. They may not remember your name but they will never forget the way you made them feel.

When women take care of their health they become their own best friend.

The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn't need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder-in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.

Give yourself time just to be with yourself.

Live life as if it were created just for you.

When was the last time anyone ever told you how important you are?

You build your 'COURAGE MUSCLE' daily, by being courageous in little things. Just do right..

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.

Human beings are more alike than unalike. Whether in Paris, Texas, or Paris, France, we all want to have good jobs where we are needed and respected and paid just a little more than we deserve. We want healthy children, safe streets, to be loved and have the unmitigated gall to accept love. If we are religious, we want a place to perpetuate God. If not, we want a good lecture every once in a while. And everyone wants someplace to party on Saturday nights.

There's a place in you that you must keep inviolate. You must keep it pristine. Clean. So that nobody has a right to curse you or treat you badly. Nobody. No mother, father, no wife, no husband, no­­­-nobody. You have to have a place where you say: 'Stop it. Back up. Don't you know I'm a child of God?

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

We must be warriors in the struggle against ignorance

Troubles are a blessing that force you to change, to believe.

Because of our routines we forget that life is an ongoing adventure.

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 have risked everything to tell the truth. Tell the truth

Nothing hurts more than realizing they meant everything to you, but you meant nothing to them.

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.

We must infuse our lives with art. Our national leaders must be informed that we want them to use our taxes to support street theatre in order to oppose street gangs. We should have a well-supported regional theatre in order to oppose regionalism and.

There is something more - the spirit, or the soul. I think that that quality encourages our courtesy and care and our minds. And mercy, and identity.

Love is a condition so powerful; it may be that which pulls the stars in the firmament. It may be that which pushes and urges the blood in the veins. Courage: you have to have courage to love somebody because you risk everything-ever ything.

I believe in living a poetic life, an art full life. 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.

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.

Spirit is an invisible force made visible in all life.

I had to trust life and believe that life loved the person who dared to live it.

The truth brings the past into the present and prepares us for the future. That's what truth does

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them.

I do not believe that the accident of birth makes people sisters and brothers. It makes them siblings. Gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood are conditions people have to work at. It's a serious matter. You compromise, you give, you take, you stand firm, and you're relentless...And it is an investment. Sisterhood means if you happen to be in Burma and I happen to be in San Diego and I'm married to someone who is very jealous and you're married to somebody who is very possessive, if you call me in the middle of the night, I have to come.

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory.

You can never be great at anything unless you love it.

If I have a monument in this world, it is my son.

At our best, we are all teachers

The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned pricks more deeply and draws more blood.

The future is plump with promise.

Life loves the person who dares to live it.

I always felt, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK.

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. Each of us has a few minutes a day or a few hours a week which we could donate to an old folks home or a children's hospital ward. The elderly whose pillows we plump or whose water pitchers we refill may or may not thank us for our gift, but the gift is upholding the foundation of the universe.

I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.

Love liberates; it doesn't bind.

I try to live what I consider a "poetic existence." That means I take responsibility for the air I breathe and the space I take up. I try to be immediate, to be totally present for all my work.