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Maya Angelou Quotes - Page 22

All Quotes Achievement Adventure Adversity Age Aging Appreciation Art Attitude Beauty Being Alone Birth Black History Bravery Cancer Challenges Change Character Children Choices Christmas Church Communication Community Compassion Confidence Country Courage Creativity Culture Dance Darkness Death Defeat Determination Discipline Diversity Dying Earth Education Effort Ego Electricity Empowerment Encouragement Encouraging Energy Ethics Failing Failure Faith Falling In Love Family Fashion Fear Feelings Fighting Forgiveness Freedom Friendship Generosity Giving Glory God Grace Graduation Gratitude Growing Up Growth Happiness Hard Work Harmony Hate Healing Heart Hell Helping Others History Home Honesty Hope House Humanity Humility Hurt Husband Identity Ignorance Inspirational Inspiring Intelligence Journey Joy Justice Kindness Language Laughter Leadership Learning Leaving Life Listening Live Life Loneliness Love Love Life Lying Memories Modesty Mom Monday Morning Motivation Motivational Moving On Music Overcoming Pain Passion Past Peace Persistence Pleasure Poetry Positive Positive Thinking Positivity Prejudice Pride Purpose Quality Racism Reading Reality Regret Respect Responsibility Romance Running Sacrifice School Segregation Self Esteem Silence Skins Sleep Son Soul Spring Strength Struggle Style Success Survival Sympathy Talent Teaching Thankful Thanksgiving Time Today Travel Trust Truth Virtue Waiting Wall War Water Whining Winning Wisdom Writing Yoga

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

Sister, Brother, Sibling

Maya Angelou, Jeffrey M. Elliot (1989). “Conversations with Maya Angelou”

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

Happiness, Success, Hope

"Still I Rise" l. 1 (1978)

I believe that people want the scent of love, more than anything else. And I don't mean sentimentality, I don't mean mush. I mean that idea, that human beings are more alike than we are different. And that means that I can love you. I don't mean support you in bad things you do, that I can understand because you're a human being.

Believe, Love You, Mean

Source: blues.gr

The whites were really brutishly ignorant, blitheringly, so they killed people sometimes - just came into the African-American community and maimed people because they didn't agree with God's choice for the colors of the people's skin.

Color, Racism, People

We are not just flesh and blood. And our hungers are not going to be set aside as just flesh and blood.

Blood, Flesh, Flesh And Blood

Source: www.psychologytoday.com

Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Dream, Pain, Ocean

FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Dec 04, 2012

I do not think of myself as unusually creative. I think we all come from the creator, each human being streaming with the glory. So each one of us is creative.

Thinking, Creative, Glory

I love a statement by the apostle Paul, in the Book of Philippians in the Bible. I think the Corinthians had been writing to Paul, telling him that old men were chasing young women, nobody was tithing - and all that must have run Paul crazy. He wrote back and said, "If there be anything of good report, speak of these things." That's one of my principles.It's another discipline that I encourage myself to employ - to, as much as possible, say the courteous thing, and then be it.

Running, Crazy, Book

Source: www.oprah.com

I'm working at trying to be a Christian, and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy: it's serious business.

Christian, Mother, Buddhist

Interview with George Plimpton (Summer 1990), as published in "Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Ninth Series" edited by George Plimpton, July 1, 1992.

"Baby, you know?" my mother once said to me. "I think you're the greatest woman I've ever met - and I'm not including my mother or Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt in that." She said, "You are very intelligent and you're very kind, and those two qualities do not often go together." Then she went across the street and got in her car, and I went the other way down to the streetcar. I thought, "Suppose she's right. She's intelligent - and she's too mean to lie." You see, a parent has the chance - and maybe the responsibility - to liberate her child. And my mom had liberated me when I was 17.

Mom, Mother, Baby

Interview with Oprah Winfrey, www.oprah.com. December 2000.

By love I don't mean indulgence. I do not mean sentimentality. And in this instance, I don't even mean romance. I mean that condition that allowed humans to dream of God.That condition that allowed the "dumb" to write spirituals and Russian songs and Irish lilts. That is love, and it's so much larger than anything I can conceive.

Dream, Song, Writing

Interview with Oprah Winfrey, www.oprah.com. December 2000.

Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.

Inspirational Life, Journey, My Journey

Maya Angelou (1995). “Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas, Poems, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now”, Bantam Dell Publishing Group

Let's tell the truth to people. When people ask, 'How are you?' have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully. You must know, however, that people will start avaoiding you because, they, too, have knees that pain them and heads that hurt and they don't want to know about yours. But think of it this way: If people avoid you, you will have more time to meditate and do fine research on a cure for whatever truly afflicts you.

Hurt, Honesty, Pain

Maya Angelou (2010). “Letter To My Daughter”, p.27, Hachette UK

I am convinced that words are things, and we simply don't have the machinery to measure what they are. I believe that words are tangible things.

Believe, Tangible, Machinery

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: 'I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.'

Life Changing, Writing, Important

I not only have the right to stand up for myself, but I have the responsibility. I can't ask somebody else to stand up for me if I won't stand up for myself. And once you stand up for yourself, you'd be surprised that people say, "Can I be of help?".

Responsibility, People, Helping

Interview with Oprah Winfrey, www.oprah.com. December 2000.

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.

Life, Happiness, Inspiring

FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Jun 08, 2009

Sometimes all you need in love is to make each other happy, to make each other laugh. So long as you can still do that ten years down the line then I think you're gold. Never let the laughter slip from your relationship.

Laughter, Romantic Love, Love Is

To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflict than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity.

Inspirational, Maturity, Battle

Maya Angelou (2009). “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, p.267, Random House

My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine.

Children, Son, Blessing

My people couldn't have survived slavery without having hope that it would get better. And there's some songs from the 19th and 18th century that say [sings], "By and by, by and by, I will lay down, this heavy load." And I mean, so many songs that spoke of hope and understand it better by and by. Amazing songs. So that the slaves, just knowing that he, she, did not have the right legally to walk within one inch away from where the slave owner dictated, and yet the same person, wrote and sang with fervor, "If the lord wants somebody, here am I, send me." It's amazing.

Song, Mean, Slave Owners

Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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, if I do that well enough, then I'll be able to look after someone else -- the children or the husband or the elderly. But I have to look after myself first. I know that some people think that's being selfish, I think that's being self-full.

Children, Husband, Selfish

"Maya Angelou Opens Women’s Health And Wellness Center, Calls Disparities ‘Embarrassing’" by Jessica Cumberbatch Anderson, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 15, 2012.

We are growing up. We are growing up! Out of the idiocies - the ignorances of racism and sexism and ageism and all those ignorances.

Growing Up, Ignorance, Racism

Source: www.psychologytoday.com

When I write, I tend to twist my hair. Something for my small mind to do, I guess.

Writing, Hair, Mind

"Maya Angelou: How I Write". Interview with Noah Charney, www.thedailybeast.com. April 10, 2013.

Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication.

Communication, Writing, Mean

"Maya Angelou: 'I make no apologies for writing a cookbook'". Interview with John Crace, www.theguardian.com. November 2, 2011.

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