Maya Angelou Quotes

259 Sourced Quotes

I, with millions of other Americans, have the same dream Martin Luther King Jr. had; when I wake up I wish some of the things I dreamt would be true. I wish that little black and white boys and girls would hold hands without being shocked at their nearness to each other and say in a natural way, "we have overcome.

Maya Angelou
Hosts to species long since departed, Marked the mastodon, The dinosaur, who left dried tokens of their sojourn here on our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their hastening doom Is lost in the form of dust and ages.

Maya Angelou
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.

Maya Angelou
All riddles are blues, / And all blues are sad, / And I'm only mentioning / Some blues I've had.

Maya Angelou
We are the victims of the world's most comprehensive robbery. Life demands a balance. It's all right if we do a little robbing now.

Maya Angelou
I'm grateful to be an American. I am grateful that we can be angry at the terrorist assault and at the same time be intelligent enough not to hold a grudge against every Arab and every Muslim.

Maya Angelou
Take a month and show some kindness for the folks who thought that blindness was an illness that affected eyes alone.

Maya Angelou
Life offers us tickets to places which we have not knowingly asked for.

Maya Angelou
If our children are to approve of themselves, they must see that we approve of ourselves.

Maya Angelou
The mixture of arrogance and insecurity is as volatile as the much-touted alcohol and gasoline. The difference is that with the former there is a long internal burning usually terminating in self- destroying implosion.

Maya Angelou
It is important that we learn humility, which says there was someone else before me who paid for me. My responsibility is to prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who is yet to come.

Maya Angelou
When my bones are stiff and aching
And my feet won't climb the stair,
I will only ask one favor:
Don't bring me no rocking chair.

Maya Angelou
I thought if I could face the worst danger voluntarily, and triumph, I would forever have power over it.

Maya Angelou
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
And into your brother's face,
Your country,
And say simply
Very simply
With hope—
Good morning.

Maya Angelou
Now, after years of observation and enough courage to admit what I have observed, I try to plant peace if I do not want discord; to plant loyalty and honesty if I want to avoid betrayal and lies.

Maya Angelou
In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn't really, absolutely know what whites looked like.

Maya Angelou
The idea of overcoming is always fascinating to me. It's fascinating because few of us realize how much energy we have expended just to be here today. I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for the overcoming.

Maya Angelou
I'm very blessed that I have a healthy temper. I can become quite angry and burning in anger, but I have never been bitter. Bitterness is a corrosive, terrible acid. It just eats you and makes you sick.

Maya Angelou
In order to win, we pay with energy and effort and discipline. If we lose, we pay in disappointment, discontent, and lack of fulfillment.

Maya Angelou