“When I think of death, and of late the idea has come with alarming frequency, I seem at peace with the idea that a day will dawn when I will no longer be among those living in this valley of strange humors. I can accept the idea of my own demise, but I am unable to accept the death of anyone else. I find it impossible to let a friend or relative go into that country of no return. Disbelief becomes my close companion, and anger follows in its wake. I answer the heroic question ‘Death, where is thy sting? ‘ with ‘ it is here in my heart and mind and memories.’”
"To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power."
- Maya Angelou
Love
"We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated."
- Maya Angelou
Courage
"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
Courage
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
- Maya Angelou
Compassion
"The best part of life is not just surviving, but thriving with passion and compassion and humor and style and generosity and kindness."
- Maya Angelou
Compassion
"Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful."
- Joshua J. Marine
Adversity
"The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it."
- Epicurus
Adversity
"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Adversity
"The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself—the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us—that’s where it’s at."
- Jesse Owens
Adversity
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."
- Frederick Douglass
Adversity