Get inspired by the late activist and literary icon. Let these enlightening Maya Angelou quotes serve as an unofficial guide to life. Here, find the poet’s quotes on life, love and friendship. These Maya Angelou quotes can help you embrace life despite its hardships. Maya Angelou’s quotations can help you see the positive in everything.
Enjoyed these Maya Angelou quotes? Share below. Please contribute any more Maya Angelou quotations you know. Share the quotations with friends and followers.
We love Maya Angelou’s remarks. Her honest speaking and lyricism transcend race and decades. Maya Angelou quotes cover life, love, happiness, bravery, family, friendship, and education. Enjoy!
Read our collection of thought-provoking quotations.
Maya Angelou Quotes About Life, Love, And Success
1. “I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.” – Maya Angelou
2. “If you’re always trying to be normal you’ll never know how amazing you can be.” ― Maya Angelou
3. “This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.” ― Maya Angelou
4. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use the more you have.”― Maya Angelou
5. “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.” – Maya Angelou
6. “I come as one but I stand as ten thousand.”― Maya Angelou
7. “I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.” ― Maya Angelou
8. “I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.” – Maya Angelou
9. “Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence—neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish—it is an imponderably valuable gift.”― Maya Angelou
10. I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too. – Maya Angelou
11. We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike. – Maya Angelou
12. “All great achievements require time.” – Maya Angelou
13. “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” – Maya Angelou
14. “While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.” – Maya Angelou
15. “Precious jewel, you glow, you shine, reflecting all the good things in the world. Just look at yourself.” ― Maya Angelou
16. “This is a beautiful day, I’ve never seen this one before.” – Maya Angelou
17. Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go.’ – Maya Angelou
18. “What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.” – Maya Angelou
19. “I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.” – Maya Angelou
20. A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. – Maya Angelou
21. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. – Maya Angelou
22. “No human being can be more human than another human being. I liberate you from my ignorance.” ― Maya Angelou
23. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. – Maya Angelou
24. “Human beings are like some plants. If we pause a few seconds in our journey, we begin setting down roots, tendrils that entangle other people as we ourselves are entangled.” ― Maya Angelou
25. “I looked up the way I was going and back the way I come and since I wasn’t satisfied I stepped off and [found] me a new path.”― Maya Angelou
26. “We must insist that the men and women who expect to lead us recognize the true desires of those who are being led.”― Maya Angelou
27. “Give yourself time just to be with yourself.” – Maya Angelou
28. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. – Maya Angelou
29. “I had to trust life, since I was young enough to believe that life loved the person who dared to live it.”― Maya Angelou
30. “I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.” – Maya Angelou
31. “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” ― Maya Angelou
32. “The wise woman thinks twice and speaks once or, better yet, does not speak at all.”― Maya Angelou
33. “In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons.”― Maya Angelou
34. “My sin lies in not screaming loud.”― Maya Angelou
35. “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do and liking how you do it.” ― Maya Angelou
36. “The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.”― Maya Angelou
37. Courage – you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn’t want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself. – Maya Angelou
38. “The love of the family, the love of one person, can heal. It heals the scars left by society. A massive, powerful society.”― Maya Angelou
39. “The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.” ― Maya Angelou
40. “Love life. Engage in it. Give it all you’ve got. Love it with a passion because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.” –Maya Angelou
41. “If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.” – Maya Angelou
42. “Success is loving life and daring to live it.” – Maya Angelou
43. “It’s hard because people think they have something to lose and the truth is they have everything to gain in trying to love somebody.” – Maya Angelou
44. “I did then what I knew best, when I knew better, I did better.”― Maya Angelou
45. “Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.” ― Maya Angelou
46. “I ordered myself to be kind.”― Maya Angelou
47. Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more. – Maya Angelou
48. “On this platform of peace, we can create a language to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.”― Maya Angelou
49. “Do the best you can do till you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” ― Maya Angelou
50. My life has been long, and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring still. – Maya Angelou
51. “Intelligence always had a pornographic influence on me.”― Maya Angelou
52. “There is nothing a person can’t do, and there should be nothing a human being didn’t care about. It was the most positive encouragement I could have hoped for.”― Maya Angelou
53. “We must be warriors in the struggle against ignorance.” – Maya Angelou
54. “I swear to God, I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind.”― Maya Angelou
55. “Always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy.”― Maya Angelou
56. “I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.” – Maya Angelou
57. “There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.”- Maya Angelou
58. “They may have forgotten how badly they treated you, or they may pretend that they have forgotten. But watch: They will come back to you.”― Maya Angelou
59. “I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.” – Maya Angelou
60. “There is a true yearning to respond to the singing river and wise rock.”― Maya Angelou
61. “I find relief from the questions only when I concede that I am not obliged to know everything. I remind myself it is sufficient to know what I know, and that what I know, may not always be true.”― Maya Angelou
62. “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
63. We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. – Maya Angelou
64. Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option. – Maya Angelou
65. You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. – Maya Angelou
66. I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. – Maya Angelou
67. “Live as though life was created for you.” – Maya Angelou
68. “When we decide to be happy we accept the responsibility to bring happiness to someone else.” – Maya Angelou
69. I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I’m praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I’m grateful that I’m heard. – Maya Angelou
70. “It was a little light, but she aimed it directly at the gloom of ignorance.”― Maya Angelou
71. “Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight.” – Maya Angelou
72. “Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.” – Maya Angelou
73. “Every day I awaken I am grateful. My intent is to be totally present in that day. And laugh as much as possible.”― Maya Angelou
74. “I like to have guns around. I don’t like to carry them.” – Maya Angelou
75. “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.” – Maya Angelou
76. “All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us all that we are more alike than we are unalike.”― Maya Angelou
77. “I wish we could stop the little lies. I don’t mean that one has to be brutally frank. I don’t believe that we should be brutal about anything, however, it is wonderfully liberating to be honest. One does not have to tell all that one knows, but we should be careful what we say is the truth.” ― Maya Angelou
78. “It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.” – Maya Angelou
79. “Remember, people will judge you by your actions not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold but so does a hard-boiled egg.”― Maya Angelou
80. “I learned that a friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.” ― Maya Angelou
81. “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
82. “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” – Maya Angelou
83. “You can’t get too high for somebody to bring you down.”― Maya Angelou
84. “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.”― Maya Angelou
85. “This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.”― Maya Angelou
86. I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. – Maya Angelou
87. “A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.” – Maya Angelou
88. “You don’t need another person, place or thing to make you whole. God already did that. Your job is to know it.” – Maya Angelou
89. “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
90. “We begin to stop in order simply to begin again.” ― Maya Angelou
91. “Will I be less dead because I wrote this poem or you more because you read it long years hence.”― Maya Angelou
92. “If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.” – Maya Angelou
93. “Believe people when they tell you who they are. They know themselves better than you.”― Maya Angelou
94. “Peace means when there is conflict, use our common sense and our compassion to consider rest of humanity, our human brothers and sisters.” ― Maya Angelou
95. “I hope you always find a reason to smile.”― Maya Angelou
96. Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. – Maya Angelou
97. “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.” – Maya Angelou
98. “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.” – Maya Angelou
99. “In all my work what I try to say is that as human beings we are more alike than we are unalike.”― Maya Angelou
100. “All my work, my life, everything I do is about survival, not just bare, awful, plodding survival, but survival with grace and faith. While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated.” ― Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928–May 28, 2014) was a novelist, poet, dancer, actor, singer, and activist. Maya has almost 50 honorary degrees and 7 memoirs on her upbringing and adulthood.
Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010. Maya Angelou had confidence, contributed, and persisted. She left behind years of insight.
These Maya Angelou Quotes Are Awesome! Her legacy remains on after her 2014 death. She was a poet, storyteller, educator, activist, actor, and filmmaker.
Maya survived sexual assault, prejudice, poverty, and violence to become an award-winning novelist. These Maya Angelou quotes should motivate you to enjoy your life and conquer problems.
Maya Angelou was — and remains– one of America’s most beloved poets and authors. Here are 100 Maya Angelou quotes to inspire your life.