History Maya Angelou Quotes & Sayings

I read Christopher McDougall's book 'Born to Run.' If running were a religion, this would be its bible. I actually scribbled my favorite passages on my arm to read during the race. — Jennifer Carpenter

The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn't need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder-in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever. — Maya Angelou

I've learned to rely on the strength I inherited from all those who came before me-the grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and brothers who were tested with unimaginable hardships and still survived. 'I go forth alone, and stand as ten thousand,' Maya Angelou proclaimed in her poem 'Our Grandmothers.' When I move through the world, I bring all my history with me-all the people who paved the way for me are part of who I am. — Oprah Winfrey

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. — Maya Angelou

The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are. — Maya Angelou

Well, let's look on the bright side," I said, deciding he needed a distraction. "Don't." "The good news is that we'll probably be either rescued or dead before we have to worry about serious hypothermia. There's always a silver lining, Hunter. — Joanna Wylde

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: 'I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.' — Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies.
You may trod me in the very dirt, but still like dust, I'll rise. — Maya Angelou

It is imperative that young white men and women study the black American history. It is imperative that blacks and whites study the Asian American history. — Maya Angelou

I have a great, great company. I employ thousands of people. And I'm very proud of the job I did. — Donald Trump

Won't it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history. — Maya Angelou

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. — Maya Angelou

We, the black people, the most displaced, the poorest, the most maligned and scourged, we had the glorious task of reclaiming the soul and saving the honor of the country. We, the most hated, must take hate into our hands and by the miracle of love, turn loathing into love. We, the most feared and apprehensive must take fear and by love, change it into hope. We, who die daily in large and small ways, must take the demon death and turn it into life.-Martin Luther King Jr. — Maya Angelou

Don't hesitate to learn the most painful aspects of our history, understand it. — Maya Angelou

If you want things to change, you must change. If you want things to get better, you must get better. — Ted Atoka

A woman needs someone she can trust, someone who laughs when she laughs, but who has different ideas so she can learn from and teach to them. She needs someone who will stand up with her and encourage her to be a woman-not just a female. See where you are, admit what you know, and what you need, and search for a sister friend. — Maya Angelou

I will write on the pages of history what I want them to say. I will be myself. I will speak my own name. — Maya Angelou

We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors' wisdom. — Maya Angelou

The autobiographer looks at life through the lens of his or her own life and really uses herself or himself as the jumping-off place to examine the social mores and the economic and political climates. In a way, the autobiography becomes history as well as the story of one person, for it becomes the story of a family or the story of the state or nation. — Maya Angelou

The truth is very important. No matter how negative it is, it is imperative that you learn the truth, not necessarily the facts. I mean, that, that can come, but facts can stand in front of the truth and almost obscure the truth. It is imperative that students learn the truth of our history. — Maya Angelou

I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is. — Maya Angelou

We can only know where we're going if we know where we've been. — Maya Angelou

Probably the best advertising jobs of all are done by governments to convince people to go to war. — Jerry Della Femina

People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able to live at all. I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed. — Maya Angelou

Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery. — Maya Angelou

Every person under the sound of my voice is a soldier. You are either fighting for your freedom or betraying the fight for freedom or enlisted in the army to deny somebody else freedom. - Malcom X — Maya Angelou