Maya Angelou

Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

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

I am a Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, that’s me.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

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.

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

Riches are for spending.

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.

This body of mine is my teacher. This heart of mine, my guide. My dear head struggles to make sense of it all whilst my hands gently remind me to trust and let go.

Gazing to the south, from the eastern peak, the moon appears through the raindrops.

It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will for their own safety and for the good of all walk together side by side in majesty, in justice, and in peace.

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.

If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark: – I wasn’t worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.

I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.

Where God does not govern, tyrants will rule.

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.