Maya Angelou

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to asses the road which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the feature road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.

I encourage you to live with life. Be courageous, adventurous. Give us a tomorrow, more than we deserve.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.

For Wealth are all things that conduce, to one’s destruction or their use. A standard both to buy and sell, all things from heaven down to hell.

Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!

The person is a poor judge who by an action can be disgraced more in failing than they can be honored in succeeding.

What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder?

Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding.

If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn’t be anything for us to do.

Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence. The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.

As Puppets are to Men, and Babies to Children, so is Man’s Workmanship to God’s: We are the Picture, he the Reality.

Every time I think I have reached the peak, I look up and see I still have a ways to go. But I look back and see just how far I have come.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake . . . by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.

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