100+ Inspiring Maya Angelou Quotes to Uplift Your Spirit

"You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise."

- Maya Angelou

"In all my work, what I try to say is that as human beings, we are more alike than we are unalike."

- Maya Angelou

"Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait."

- Maya Angelou

"Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances."

- Maya Angelou

"Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet."

- Maya Angelou

"The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise."

- Maya Angelou

"My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness."

- Maya Angelou

"We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are."

- Maya Angelou

"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."

- Maya Angelou

"Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently."

- Maya Angelou

"You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise."

- Maya Angelou

"Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"One must learn to care for oneself first, so that one can then dare to care for someone else."

- Maya Angelou

"Love heals. Heals and liberates. I use the word love, not meaning sentimentality, but a condition so strong that it may be that which holds the stars in their heavenly positions and that which causes the blood to flow orderly in our veins."

- Maya Angelou

"If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love."

- Maya Angelou

"The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous."

- Maya Angelou

"I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life."

- Jane Goodall

"The human heart is so delicate and sensitive that it always needs some tangible encouragement to prevent it from faltering in its labor."

- Maya Angelou

"In a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists."

- Maya Angelou

"Love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free."

- Maya Angelou

"If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls."

- Maya Angelou

"Love liberates. It doesn’t just hold, that’s ego. Love liberates."

- Maya Angelou

"Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else."

- Maya Angelou

"Nothing can dim the light which shines from within."

- Maya Angelou

"Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it."

- Maya Angelou

"We need much less than we think we need."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"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."

- Maya Angelou

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

- Maya Angelou

"You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great."

- Maya Angelou

"If our children are to approve of themselves, they must see that we approve of ourselves."

- Maya Angelou

"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do and liking how you do it."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"The idea of overcoming is always fascinating to me. It’s fascinating because few of us realize how much energy we have expended just to be here today. I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit for the overcoming."

- Maya Angelou

"Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"Life loves to be taken by the lapel and be told, 'I am with you kid. Let’s go!'"

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"Life offers us tickets to places which we have not knowingly asked for."

- Maya Angelou

"Being free is being able to accept people for what they are, and not try to understand all they are or be what they are."

- Maya Angelou

"We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated."

- Maya Angelou

"Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed."

- Maya Angelou

"Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women."

- Maya Angelou

"I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good."

- Maya Angelou

"The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God - if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That's what I think."

- Maya Angelou

"What is a fear of living? It's being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don't know what you're here to do, then just do some good."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody."

- Maya Angelou

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

- Maya Angelou

"In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger that we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be."

- Maya Angelou

"Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."

- Maya Angelou

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."

- Maya Angelou

"The desire to reach the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise and most possible."

- Maya Angelou

"As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others."

- Audrey Hepburn

"The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society."

- Maya Angelou

"I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too."

- Maya Angelou

"It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it."

- Maya Angelou

"Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me."

- Maya Angelou

"Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with acts of kindness. Continue to allow humour to lighten the burden of your tender heart."

- Maya Angelou

"I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it."

- Maya Angelou

"Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible."

- Maya Angelou

"Nothing will work unless you do."

- Maya Angelou

"I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody."

- Oprah Winfrey

"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."

- Maya Angelou

"A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free."

- Maya Angelou

"But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage."

- Maya Angelou

"I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going. I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment. I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place."

- Maya Angelou

"If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike."

- Maya Angelou

"Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time."

- Maya Angelou

"We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men... We are who we are because they were who they were. It's wise to know where you come from, who called your name."

- Maya Angelou

"I’m grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life."

- Maya Angelou

"All great achievements require time."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"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."

- Maya Angelou

"I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn."

- Maya Angelou

"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean."

- Maya Angelou

"The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are."

- Maya Angelou

"The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind."

- Maya Angelou

"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."

- Maya Angelou

"While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation."

- Maya Angelou

"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."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning."

- Lewis Carroll

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

- Maya Angelou

"I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind."

- Maya Angelou

"Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness."

- Maya Angelou

"Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That's the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don't grow up."

- Maya Angelou

"I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself."

- Maya Angelou

"Won't it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Maya Angelou

"There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing."

- Maya Angelou

"The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you're wrinkled."

- Maya Angelou

"When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed."

"You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive."