Some critics will write ‘Maya Angelou is a natural writer’ – which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.
I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.
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.
Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.
When women take care of their health they become their own best friend.
Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight.
You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.
Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.
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.
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome.
I come as one, but stand as 10,000.
Difficult is a far cry from impossible. The distance between these two lies hope. Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Invite one to stay.
Courage allows the successful woman to fail – and to learn powerful lessons from the failure – so that in the end, she didn’t fail at all.
Just like moons and suns, With certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.
Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs. The ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile, and who love you no matter what.
Being a woman is hard work. Not without joy and even ecstasy, but still relentless, unending work. Becoming an old female may require only being born with certain genitalia, inheriting long-living genes and the fortune not to be run over by an out-of-control truck, but to become and remain a woman command the existence and employment of genius.
Human beings are more alike than unalike, and what is true anywhere is true everywhere, yet I encourage travel to as many destinations as possible for the sake of education as well as pleasure... by demonstrating that all people cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends.
I come as one but I stand as ten thousand.