Quotes & Sayings About Life Maya Angelou

If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. — Maya Angelou

I know, that since life is our most precious gift, and as far as we can be absolutely certain, it's given to us to live but once, let us so live we will not regret years of useless virtue, and inertia, and timidity, and ignorance, and in our last moments we can say: 'All my life, all my conscious energies, have been dedicated to the most noble cause in the world, the liberation of the human mind and spirit - beginning with my own'. — Maya Angelou

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

The only way out of something is all the way through it. — Maya Angelou

Life offers us tickets to places which we have not knowingly asked for. — Maya Angelou

This is my life. it is my one time to be me. i want to experience every good thing. — Maya Angelou

Momma intended to teach Bailey and me to use the paths of life that she and her generation and all the Negroes gone before had found, and found to be safe ones. She didn't cotton to the idea that whitefolks could be talked to at all without risking one's life. And certainly they couldn't be spoken to insolently. In fact, even in their absence they could not be spoken of too harshly unless we used the sobriquet "They." If she had been asked and had chosen to answer the question of whether she was cowardly or not, she would have said that she was a realist. — Maya Angelou

Love. And again, see I don't mean, I think love is that condition in the human spirit so profund, that it allows us to forgive, and it may be the energy which keeps the stars in the firmament, I'm not sure. It may be the energy which keeps the blood running smoothly through our veins. I'm not sure, but it's something beyond the explanation. It can be used for anything you can explain. Any good thing you can explain. — Maya Angelou

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

My life has been one great big joke,
A dance that's walked,
A song that's spoke,
I laugh so hard I almost choke,
When I think about myself. — Maya Angelou

Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life. — Maya Angelou

The happy heart runs with the river, floats on the air, lifts to the music, soars with the eagle, hopes with the prayer. — Maya Angelou

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice. — Maya Angelou

Modesty is a learned adaptation. It's stuck on like decals. As soon as life slams a modest person against the wall, that modesty will fall off faster than a G-string will fall off a stripper. — Maya Angelou

I want to thank you, Lord, for life and all that's in it.
Thank you for the day and for the hour, and the minute. — Maya Angelou

The devil lives in our mistakes, the lord lives in our rights. Who lives in our ignorance, and who wins after all? — Maya Angelou

It is sad but true that sometimes we need the tragedy to help us to see how human we are and how we are more alike than we are different. — Maya Angelou

Be the best of anything you get into. If you want to be a whore, it's your life. Be a damn good one. Don't chippy at anything. Anything worth having is worth working for.'
It was her version of Polonius' speech to Laertes. With that wisdom in my pouch, I was to go out and buy my future. — Maya Angelou

You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated. — Maya Angelou

What stands out to me most about Maya Angelou is not what she has done or written or spoken; it's how she lived her life. She moved through the world with unshakable calm, confidence and a fierce grace. — Oprah Winfrey

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it. — Maya Angelou

I know for sure that love saves me. And that it is here to save us all. I know it's a sense, it's more close to us than air, more loud to us than hearing. I know it. I know that we can sit in it. Yes, love honey, and you know by that, I don't mean mush, or any, I don't mean romance, or sentimentality. I mean something is so, it can raise the dead. It can make a mountain move. I know it. I haven't done it, but i know it. As surely as I'm sitting here. — Maya Angelou

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? — Maya Angelou

I believe in living a poetic life, an art full life. Everything we do from the way we raise our children to the way we welcome our friends is part of a large canvas we are creating. — Maya Angelou

Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait. — Maya Angelou

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

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. — Maya Angelou

I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life ... her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing. — Maya Angelou

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops. — Maya Angelou

The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed. — Maya Angelou

Determine to live life with flair and laughter. — Maya Angelou

Life is a glorious banquet, a limitless and delicious buffet. — Maya Angelou

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

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

Life loves the liver of it. — Maya Angelou

Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift. — Maya Angelou

You might encounter defeats but you must never be defeated ... Love a lot. Laugh a lot at the silliest things and be very serious ... love life. — Maya Angelou

To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow. — Maya Angelou

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

Your life is much more important that you can imagine ... it is your first treasure. — Maya Angelou

On the day of your birth, the Creator filled countless storehouses, set aside for your use and yours alone. — Maya Angelou

Without defeats, how do you really know who the hell you are? If you never had to stand up to something - to get up, to be knocked down, and to get up again - life can walk over you wearing football cleats. But each time you do get up, you're bigger, taller, finer, more beautiful, more kind, more understanding, more loving. Each time you get up, you're more inclusive. More people can stand under your umbrella. — Maya Angelou

Oh, the holiness of always being the injured party. The historically oppressed can find not only sanctity but safety in the stateof victimization. When access to a better life has been denied often enough, and successfully enough, one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts. After all, one reckons, "they" don't want me, "they" accept their own mediocrity and refuse my best, "they" don't deserve me. — Maya Angelou

The first step towards immortality is living a life worth remembering, (Bruce Lee)
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. (Oprah)
A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search for that voice can be remarkably difficult. (Melinda Gates)
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. (Maya Angelou) — Edward A. Dreyfus

We are here to love each other.
That is why you are alive.
That is what life is for. — Maya Angelou

I might have it at six-fifteen a.m. just as soon as I get in, but usually it's about eleven o'clock when I'll have a glass of sherry. — Maya Angelou

Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike. — Maya Angelou

Life loves the person who dares to live it. — Maya Angelou

You can only become great at that thing you're willing to sacrifice for. — Maya Angelou

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young. — Maya Angelou

My mother is so full of joy and life. I am her child. And that is better than being the child of anyone else in the world. — Maya Angelou

Light and shadow are opposite sides of the same coin. We can illuminate our paths or darken our way. It is a matter of choice. — Maya Angelou

Spirit is an invisible force made visible in all life. — Maya Angelou

When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.
~Maya Angelou
Remember this because it will happen many times in your life. When people show you who they are the first time believe them. Not the 29th. time. When a man doesn't call you back the first time, when you are mistreated the first time, when someone shows you lack of integrity or dishonesty the first time, know that this will be followed many many other times, that will some point in life come back to haunt or hurt you. Live your life in truth. Don't pretend to be someone you're not. You will survive anything if you live your life from the point of view of truth. — Oprah Winfrey

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

be a rainbow in someone else's cloude — Maya Angelou

Hadn't I, always, but ever and ever, thought that life was just one great risk for the living? — Maya Angelou

And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed. — Maya Angelou

Joy is an important element of happiness. It is sometimes the difference between striving and thriving. One must nurture the joy in one's life so that it reaches full bloom. — Maya Angelou

Mother's life flowed radiant. Flourescent-tipped waves on incoming tides. — Maya Angelou

Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright's pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace. — Maya Angelou

I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I'm a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself - all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve. — Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou had the ability to glean inspiration out of pain. — The Prophet Of Life

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

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style — 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

We are the victims of the world's most comprehensive robbery. Life demands a balance. It's all right if we do a little robbing now. — Maya Angelou

Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening — Maya Angelou

Try to live your life in a way that you will not regret years of useless virtue and inertia and timidity. — Maya Angelou

There have been people in my life who meant me well, taught me valuable lessons, and others who have meant me ill and have given me ample notification that my world is not meant to be all peaches and cream. — Maya Angelou

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

Life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you. — Maya Angelou

Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now. — Maya Angelou

Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your mind to the wonders of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself. — Maya Angelou

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life. — Maya Angelou

Creativity or talent, like electricity, is something I don't understand but something I'm able to harness and use. While electricity remains a mystery, I know I can plug into it and light up a cathedral or a synagogue or an operating room and use it to help save a life. Or I can use it to electrocute someone. Like electricity, creativity makes no judgment. I can use it productively or destructively. The important thing is to use it. You can't use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have. — Maya Angelou

Life sometimes gives you a second chance. — 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. — Maya Angelou

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 unshaking need for an unshakable God. My pretty Black brother was my Kingdom Come. — Maya Angelou

Life is a gift, and i try to respond with grace and courtesy. — Maya Angelou

Malcolm stood at the microphone. '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's freedom.' His voice, deep and textured, reached through the crowd, across the street to the tenement windows where listeners leaned half their bodies out into the spring air. 'The black man has been programmed to die. To die either by his own hand, the hand of his brother or at the hand of a blue-eyed devil trained to do one thing: take the black man's life.' The — Maya Angelou

To those who have given up on love: I say, Trust life a little bit. — Maya Angelou

You rose into my life like a promised sunrise, brightening my days with the light in your eyes. I've never been so strong. Now I'm where I belong. — Maya Angelou

I am convinced that most people do not grow up ... We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias. — Maya Angelou

We agreed that great men and women should be forced to live as long as possible. The reverence they enjoyed was a life sentence, which they could neither revoke nor modify. — Maya Angelou

It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us. — Maya Angelou

I encourage you to live with life. Be courageous, adventurous. Give us a tomorrow, more than we deserve. — Maya Angelou

The dread of futility has been my life-long plague. — Maya Angelou

The woman who truly intends to live a good life is already living phenomenally since intent is part of the achievement. — Maya Angelou

I would say you might encounter many defeats but you must never be defeated, ever. In fact, it might even be necessary to confront defeat. It might be necessary, to get over it, all the way through it, and go on. I would teach her to laugh a lot. Laugh a lot at the - and the silliest things and be very, very serious. I'd teach her to love life, I can bet you that. — Maya Angelou

I had no heart nor art to drag him back to the reeking reality of our life and times. — Maya Angelou

She liberated me from a society that would have had me think of myself as the lower of the low. She liberated me to life. And from that time to this time, I have taken life by the lapels and I have said, "I'm with you, kid. — Maya Angelou

Every experience shapes your writing, being stuck in a car on a lonely bridge, or dancing at a prom, being the it girl on the beach, all of those things influence your life, they influence how you write, and the topics you choose to write about. — Maya Angelou

I was born in St. Louis but lived there just for a few minutes in my life. — Maya Angelou

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 commensurate speed. — Maya Angelou

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. It makes no judgment. I think talent is like that. I believe every person is born with talent. — Maya Angelou

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

Remember this: When you cross my doorstep, you have already been raised. With what you have learned ... you know the difference between right and wrong. Do right. Don't anybody raise you from the way you have been raised. Know you will have to make adaptations, in love, in relationships, in friends, in society, in work, but don't let anybody change your mind. — Maya Angelou

When old folks laugh,
they consider the promise
of dear painless death, and generously
forgive life for happening
to them. — Maya Angelou

Why did she want to go to sea and live the rough unglamorous life of a seaman? 'Because they told me Negro women couldn't get in the union. You know what I told them?' I shook my head, although I nearly knew. 'I told them, "You want to bet?" I'll put my foot in that door up to my hip until women of every color can walk over my foot, get in that union, get aboard a ship and go to sea. — Maya Angelou