Quotes By Maya Angelou

There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

All great achievements require time.

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.

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

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.

While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man's humanity to man.

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

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

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

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.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I'm with you kid. Let's go."

Effective action is always unjust.

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

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.

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.