Maya Angelou Quotes

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, `I`m with you kid. Let`s go.`

If you don`t like something, change it. If you can`t change it, change your attitude. Don`t complain.

The needs of society determine its ethics.

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

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

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.

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

Determine to live life with flair and laughter.

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

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

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

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.

I know why the caged bird sings.

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

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

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.

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.

I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

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.

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.

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 ent

I`ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

A bird doesn`t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

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.

God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us- in the dreariest and most dreaded moments- can see a possibility of hope.

I believe talent is like electricity. We don`t understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. Electricity will do all that. It makes no

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.

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.

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.

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.

If you don`t like something, change it. If you can`t change it, change your attitude. Don`t complain.

Life loves the liver of it.

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