Jackie Robinson

Above anything else, I hate to lose.

I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity.

I’m grateful for all the breaks and honors and opportunities I’ve had, but I always believe I won’t have it made until the humblest black kid in the most remote backwoods of America has it made.

No matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand.

The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.

For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.

For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.

Many a man’s strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.

If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone.

We are free to yield to truth.

Revolutions go not backward.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Some critics will write ‘Maya Angelou is a natural writer’ – which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.

Girls, like men, want to be petted, pitied, and made much of, when they are diffident, in low spirits, or in unrequited love. These are services which the weak cannot render to the strong and which the strong will not render to the weak, except when there is also a difference of sex.

If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries.

You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren.

My liver swells with bile difficult to repress.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation.