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Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Maya Angelou (American Poet)

Inspirational Quotations by Maya Angelou (American Poet)

Maya Angelou (1928–2014,) born Marguerite Ann Johnson, was an African-American poet, author, singer, dancer, playwright, director, actor, professor, and civil rights activist. Her seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry chronicled the African American experience in literature.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970,) Angelou’s first autobiography, told the story of her life up to the age of seventeen. Angelou’s account of her harrowing childhood in Arkansas, her segregation in southern schools, and the beginning of her relationship with literature brought her international recognition and acclaim.

In January 1993, at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, Angelou became the second poet, the first African-American, and the first woman to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration. She wrote and recited the poem “On the Pulse of Morning” to emphasize unity, social change, and public responsibility.

Angelou inspired generations of fans with her enthusiasm to share the wisdom she acquired from the struggle of her childhood of abuse, the oppression in the American Deep South in the 1930s, and her early adult experiences.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Maya Angelou

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Inspirational Quotes by Maya Angelou (American Poet)

The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Friendship

I know why the caged bird sings.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Birds

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

When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness… all the good things.
—Maya Angelou

The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.
—Maya Angelou

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.
—Maya Angelou

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Luck

Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.
—Maya Angelou

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
—Maya Angelou

It is only out of ignorance that people are cruel, because they really don’t think it will come back.
—Maya Angelou

Therefore we pledge to bind ourselves to one another, to embrace our lowliest, to keep company with our loneliest, to educate our illiterate, to feed our starving, to clothe our ragged, to do all good things, knowing that we are more than keepers of our brothers and sisters. We are our brothers and sisters.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Humanity

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Bitterness, Anger, Cancer

People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but, they will always remember how you made them feel.
—Maya Angelou

The sadness of the women’s movement is that they don’t allow the necessity of love. See, I don’t personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Women, Feminism

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning “Good morning” at total strangers.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Smile

You want me to do something—tell me I can’t do it.
—Maya Angelou

The need for change bulldozed road down the center of my mind.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Change

Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.
—Maya Angelou

Education helps one cease being intimidated by strange situations.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Peculiarity, Oddity, Education

Something made greater by ourselves and in turn that makes us greater.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Work

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Information, Truth

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the spaces between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Loneliness

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Words

Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.
—Maya Angelou

How important it is to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes.
—Maya Angelou

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

I believe talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. Electricity will do all that.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Talent

Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.
—Maya Angelou

I do not trust people who don’t love themselves and yet tell me, “I love you.” There is an African saying which is: “Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”
—Maya Angelou

It is the 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
Topics: Belief

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I’m with you kid. Let’s go.”
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Life, Life and Living

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
—Maya Angelou

Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaken need for an unshakable God.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Children

We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. It would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends, and living our lives
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Worry

No sun outlasts its sunset but will rise again and bring the dawn.
—Maya Angelou

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Solitude, Isolation

Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, “I’m going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that’s tough. I am going to snow anyway.”
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Nature

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Self-respect

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catchers mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Helping

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

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