Maya Angelou Quotes
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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.
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You don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking.
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It's so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I've never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.
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Don't get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that - if you dare. But get older because it's fun!
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I've conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I've sang and danced at La Scala!
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I did work in a strip club, but I didn't strip. I danced, and I became very popular.
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I'm just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression.
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I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people.
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I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I'm a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself - all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve.
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My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
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Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.
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Petulant priests, greedy centurions, and one million incensed gestures stand between your love and me.
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You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise.
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I was very blessed to have family and friends, but particularly family, who told me I was not only all right, I was just right, so I believe that my brain is a good one, and it's lasting me very well.
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For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.
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I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is.
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Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, 'I'm not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.' Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, 'Yes, I deserve it.'
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How wonderful it is to be an American. We have known the best of times and the worst of times.
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Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
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If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.
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Every December, I host a tree-trimming party. I serve chili with cornbread and lots of good wine. It's a wonderful party, and it shows how much adults like to play.
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Glory falls around us as we sob a dirge of desolation on the Cross and hatred is the ballast of the rock
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I'm very, very serious - I'm serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.
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Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery.