The voices / 279 fragments

Maya Angelou

Dates not recorded

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Archive entries

01Undated

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 / quote

02Undated

Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.

Maya Angelou / quote

03Undated

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 / quote

04Undated

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 / quote

05Undated

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 / quote

06Undated

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 / quote

07Undated

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 / quote

08Undated

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 / quote

09Undated

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 / quote

10Undated

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

Maya Angelou / quote

11Undated

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

Maya Angelou / quote

12Undated

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

Maya Angelou / quote

13Undated

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 / quote

14Undated

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss

Maya Angelou / quote

15Undated

Your crown has been bought and paid for. Put it on your head and wear it.

Maya Angelou / quote

16Undated

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

Maya Angelou / quote

17Undated

To those who are given much, much is expected.

Maya Angelou / quote

18Undated

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 / quote

19Undated

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 / quote

20Undated

I answer the heroic question, 'Death, where is thy sting?' with 'It is in my heart and mind and memories.

Maya Angelou / quote

21Undated

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 / quote

22Undated

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

Maya Angelou / quote

23Undated

You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may tread me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I'll rise.Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wellsPumping in my living room.Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I'll rise.Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops.Weakened by my soulful cries.Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard'Cause I laugh like I've got gold minesDiggin' in my own back yard.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.Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surpriseThat I dance like I've got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shameI riseUp from a past that's rooted in painI riseI'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that's wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.

Maya Angelou / quote

24Undated

A certain person wondered whya big strong girl like mewouldn't keep a jobwhich paid a normal salary.I took my time to lead herand to read her every page.Even minimal peoplecan't survive on minimal wage.A certain person wondered whyI wait all week for you.I didn't have the wordsto describe just what you do.I said you had the motionof the ocean in your walk,and when you solve my riddlesyou don't even have to talk.

Maya Angelou / quote