Quotes from Maya Angelou

Hope for the best, be prepared for the worse. Life is shocking, but you must never appear to be shocked. For no matter how bad it is it could be worse and no matter how good it is it could be better.

Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.

The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don't know my story.

If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?

I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.

I like chicken a lot because chicken is generous - that is to say, it's obedient. It will do whatever you tell it to do.

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

All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike.

During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not.

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.

It's good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.

Shakespeare - I was very influenced - still am - by Shakespeare. I couldn't believe that a white man in the 16th century could so know my heart.

When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one - it's the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky - in the big cities, too, for that matter.

At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in Medina and you could see a person come in, black, white, it didn't matter. You said, 'That's an American' because there's a readiness to smile and to talk to people.

The terrorist action of 9/11 gave birth to President Obama's entry to the White House. Not directly, but indirectly.

The needs of a society determine its ethics.

Because of technological breakthroughs, the society will need fewer and fewer unskilled laborers.

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

Sunday, if I'm lucky, I'll go to church or listen to some good spiritual advice on the television or on the radio. I take three or four baths to try to cleanse myself, so I'm fresh for Monday.

Determine to live life with flair and laughter.

Because of our routines we forget that life is an ongoing adventure.

Success is loving life and daring to live it.

Live life as if it were created just for you.

In a magazine, one can get - from cover to cover - 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.