Maya Angelou

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

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

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

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.

The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.

One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

I shall strike the stars with my unlifted head.

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Creativity is a consequence of action, not its motivation. Do what needs to be done and then ask whether it was possible.

What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?

In your Salvation shelter I saw poverty, misery, cold and hunger. You gave them bread and treacle and dreams of heaven. I give from thirty shillings a week to twelve thousand a year. They find their own dreams; but I look after the drainage.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature – if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you – know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.

Responsibilities are given to him on whom trust rests. Responsibility is always a sign of trust.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.

In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.