Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes 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

Recommended Reading

Inspirational Quotes by Maya Angelou (American Poet)

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

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.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Hope

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Lust For, Life

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

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

Live life as if it were created just for you.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Living

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Family

The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Graduation

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

The honorary duty of a human being is to love.
—Maya Angelou

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Belief, Compassion

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

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
—Maya Angelou

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

Some people unable to go to school were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: School, Intelligence

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

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

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

Nothing will work unless you do.
—Maya Angelou

It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.
—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

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Home

Life is pure adventure and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Life, Adventure

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
—Maya Angelou

Life loves the liver of it.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Life and Living

The love of the family, the love of the person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society.
—Maya Angelou

One must know not just how to accept a gift, but with what grace to share it.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Gift

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
—Maya Angelou
Topics: Giving

I sustain myself with the love of family.
—Maya Angelou

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