Here are Maya Angelou inspirational quotes on various aspect of life, we wrote on 20 Powerful Maya Angelou Love Quotes, and I’ll recommend you check it out.
Maya Angelou inspired millions of young women around the world, especially Black young women in the 20th century. In her memoir, she wrote extensively and honestly about her life and what it felt like to be a young woman in the 20th century.
Maya Angelou was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist in the 20th Century and met other activists like Martin Luther King Jnr and Malcolm X. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years.
Maya Angelou inspirational quotes
Maya Angelou was one of America’s most beloved and celebrated poets and authors, and she has won dozens of awards and over 50 honorary degrees attesting to her inspirational role at the center of American life. Maya Angelou was a journalist who worked in Africa, Historian, songwriter, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, and singer.
Recommended: When Someone is Lying and You Know the Truth Quotes.
To honor her and let her legacy live among us, we have gathered the top one hundred and fifty (150) of Maya Angelou’s most inspirational quotes, hoping that it brings happiness, joy, hope, and inspiration into your day.
150 Maya Angelou Quotes to Inspire Your Life.
One thing I have learned in this life is that people will forget what you said, forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel whenever they’re around you.
The world is unpredictable, you certainly may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them and how you react to them.
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly and it’s colorful wings, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve such alluring beauty.
Whenever I decide something with an open heart, it is usually the right decision.
The only thing you can truly be accomplished in, is something you love.
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, then you have to change your attitude towards it.
Sincerely, we usually need much less than what we think we need.
If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me? Always love yourself.
Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest without first having courage to practice it.
I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.
Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.
If you’re always trying to be normal and fit in, you will never know how amazing you can be.
Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls.
Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.
A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away.
If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.
Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.
Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.
I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
We are only as blind as we want to be.
I got my own back.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.
Determine to live life with flair and laughter.
I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.
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.
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.
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.
“God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us – in the dreariest and most dreaded moments – can see a possibility of hope.
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.
I know for sure that love saves me and that it is here to save us all.
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.
There is no physical distance that can shut out love.
Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.
I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.
Every time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for every woman.
A woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and herself only.
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated
When you learn, teach. When you get, give.
Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.
You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.
If you’re going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can’t be erased.
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
My wish for you is joy. When you wish someone joy, you wish peace, love, prosperity, health, happiness… all the good things.
It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.
I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.
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.
In order to get a friend, you have to be a friend. Be ready to be a friend.
I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now. Love liberates. It doesn’t bind.
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
Hate. It has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet.
I do my best because I’m counting on you counting on me.
When you know you are of worth — not asking it but knowing it — you walk into a room with a particular power.
Nothing will work unless you do.
All great achievements require time.
There is no failure as long as you learn from your experience, continue to work, and continue to press on for success.
I am a child of God. I always carry that with me
I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.
History, despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage need not be lived again.
Let nothing dim the light that shines from within.
The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.
We need joy as we need air. We need love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.
Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.
A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream.
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.
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.
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.
Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.
It is important that we learn humility, which says there was someone else before me who paid for me. My responsibility is to prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who is yet to come.
I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity, is daring to dare.
Precious jewel, you glow, you shine, reflecting all the good things in the world. Just look at yourself.
You don’t need another person, place or thing to make you whole. God already did that. Your job is to know it.
The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.
The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive powerful society.
When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.
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.
“We are not our brother’s keeper we are our brother and we are our sister. We must look past complexion and see community.
Every day I awaken I am grateful. My intent is to be totally present in that day. And laugh as much as possible.
We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.
Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls.
Thank you, always say thank you; it’s the greatest gift you can give someone; because thank you is what you say to God.
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.
I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t laugh.
We are here to love each other. That is why you are alive. That is what life is for.
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
Maya Angelou’s autobiographies:
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (1969)
“Gather Together in My Name” (1974)
“Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas” (1976)
“The Heart of a Woman” (1981)
“All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes” (1986)
“A Song Flung Up to Heaven” (2002)
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou” (2004)
“Mom & Me & Mom” (2013).
