Maya Angelou Quotes

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I'm with you kid. Let's go."

Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.

Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.

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

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.

Nothing will work unless you do.

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.

Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

All great achievements require time.

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

Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

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

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

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've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

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