Maya Angelou

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love’s light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.

If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.

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

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!

Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.

We are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspected.

You cannot dream yourself into a character you must hammer and forge yourself into one.

The foundations of a person are not in matter but in spirit.

Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are.

I can live for two months on a good compliment.

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

Revolutions are always verbose.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them.

Every person is a God in embryo. Its only desire is to be born.

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they know quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits not because recompense is a pleasure for them, but because obligation is a pain.

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.