Quotes from Maya Angelou

Love is a condition so powerful; it may be that which pulls the stars in the firmament. It may be that which pushes and urges the blood in the veins. Courage: you have to have courage to love somebody because you risk everything – everything.

Like most children, I thought if I could face the worst danger voluntarily, and triumph, I would forever have power over it.

Be wary when a naked person offers you his shirt.

For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

I hope you always find a reason to smile.

Yet it is only love which sets us free.

The epitome of sophistication is utter simplicity.

Few, if any, survive their teens.

Water isn't shaped like a river or ocean; it mists invisibly against metal and glass

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

I had to trust life, since I was young enough to believe that life loved the person who dared to live it.

There is nothing quite so tragic as a young cynic, because it means the person has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

If we lose love and self respect for each other,this is how we finally die

I wouldn't miss Mrs. Flowers, for she had given me her secret word which called forth a djinn who was to serve me all my life: books.

Late October Carefully the leaves of autumn sprinkle down the tinny sound of little dyings and skies sated of ruddy sunsets of roseate dawns roil ceaselessly in cobweb greys and turn to black for comfort. Only lovers see the fall a signal end to endings a gruffish gesture alerting those who will not be alarmed that we begin to stop in order to begin again.

Our Father, thank you for letting me see this New Day. Thank you that you didn't allow the bed I lay on last night to be my cooling board, nor my blanket my winding sheet. Guide my feet this day along the straight and narrow, and help me to put a bridle on my tongue. Bless this house, and everybody in it. Thank you, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

The honorary duty of a human being is to love.

You don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

Hanging softly over the black Singer sewing machine, it looked like magic, and when people saw me wearing it they were going to run up to me and say, Marguerite, forgive us, please, we didn't know who you were, and I would answer generously, No, you couldn't have known. Of course I forgive you.

In order to avoid this bitter end, we would all have to be born again, and born with the knowledge of alternatives. Even then?

The saying that people who have nothing to do become busybodies is not the only truth. Excitement is a drug, and people whose lives are filled with violence are always wondering where the next 'fix' is coming from.

No,nobody but nobody can make it out her alone.

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.