An internationally known and respected writer, poet and educator, Maya Angelou has authored such well-known titles as “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and “Gather Together in My Name.” She has produced and starred in several plays and authored the musical score and screenplay for the film Georgia, Georgia. She has been the recipient of many awards, including the Golden Eagle Award. Here are some of her famous motivational quotes to inspire you today.
Click here for Maya Angelou Books and Poems
Maya Angelou Quotes
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.
I don’t know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’ If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what we’re capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that’s rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don’t have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.
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.
I can be changed by what happens to me. but I refuse to be reduced by it.
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable.
If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
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.
The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.
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.
You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.
My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.