01UndatedShe said, 'No, you learned that you have power - power and determination. I love you and I am proud of you. With those two things, you can go anywhere and everywhere.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
02UndatedFrequently, I have been asked how I got to be this way. How did I, born black in a white country, poor in a society where wealth is adored and sought after at all costs, female in an environment where only large ships and some engines are described favourably by using the female pronoun-how did I get to be Maya Angelou?Maya Angelou / quote ↗
04UndatedEach time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
05UndatedWords are things. You must be careful, careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that. Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
06UndatedI can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
07UndatedWhat 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.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
09UndatedBecause of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure. . . Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
10UndatedWhen things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleepMaya Angelou / quote ↗
11UndatedWords mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
12UndatedThe“b” word and the “n” word are like poison, whether you take poison from a vial or pour it into Bavarian crystal, it is still poison.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
13UndatedThe customs are as formalised as an eighteenth-century minuet, and a child at the race's knee learns the moves and twirls by osmosis and observation.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
14UndatedI 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.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
15UndatedI’m grateful for being here, for being able to think, for being able to see, for being able to taste, for appreciating love – for knowing that it exists in a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, and yet love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
16UndatedMy mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more intelligent and more educated than college professors.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
17UndatedThat day, I learned that I could be a giver by simply bringing a smile to another person. The ensuing years have taught me that a kind word, a vote of support is a charitable gift. I can move over and make another place for someone. I can turn my music up if it pleases, or down if it is annoying. I may never be known as a philanthropist, but I certainly am a lover of mankind, and I will give freely of my resources.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
18UndatedPerhaps 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.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
19UndatedAlone"Lying, thinkingLast nightHow to find my soul a homeWhere water is not thirstyAnd bread loaf is not stoneI came up with one thingAnd I don’t believe I’m wrongThat nobody,But nobodyCan make it out here alone.Alone, all aloneNobody, but nobodyCan make it out here alone.There are some millionairesWith money they can’t useTheir wives run round like bansheesTheir children sing the bluesThey’ve got expensive doctorsTo cure their hearts of stone.But nobodyNo, nobodyCan make it out here alone.Alone, all aloneNobody, but nobodyCan make it out here alone.Now if you listen closelyI’ll tell you what I knowStorm clouds are gatheringThe wind is gonna blowThe race of man is sufferingAnd I can hear the moan,‘Cause nobody,But nobodyCan make it out here alone.Alone, all aloneNobody, but nobodyCan make it out here alone.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
22UndatedYou may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
24UndatedI am never proud to participate in violence, yet I know that each of us must care enough for ourselves that we can be ready and able to come to our own defense when and wherever needed.Maya Angelou / quote ↗
