Maya Angelou, a famous American poet, definitely left her mark on the world before she left it.

Most famous for her autobiography titled I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou’s work focused on her personal life and the lessons she learned while growing up.

Angelou became a source of inspiration for millions of people thanks to her stunning ability to connect words to the human experience. She clearly had a unique talent to write that is hard to find.

Just take a look for yourself at these Maya Angelou quotes to see what I mean.

Maya Angelou Quotes

1. “If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love” – Maya Angelou

2. “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud” – Maya Angelou

3. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” – Maya Angelou

4. “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination at its destination full of hope.” – Maya Angelou

5. “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

6. “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

7. “If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.” – Maya Angelou

8. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” – Maya Angelou

9. “We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.” – Maya Angelou

10. “If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.” – Maya Angelou

11. “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” – Maya Angelou

12. “It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.” – Maya Angelou

13. “A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.” – Maya Angelou

14. “Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.” – Maya Angelou

15. “Nothing will work unless you do.” – Maya Angelou

16. “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

17. “If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.” – Maya Angelou

18. “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

19. “I’m just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression.” – Maya Angelou

20. “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

21. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou

22. “I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.” – Maya Angelou

23. “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

24. “Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” – Maya Angelou

25. “All great achievements require time.” – Maya Angelou

26. “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.” – Maya Angelou

27. “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

28. “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” – Maya Angelou

29. “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.” – Maya Angelou

30. “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

31. “I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.” – Maya Angelou

32. ”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

33. “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

34. “I got my own back.” – Maya Angelou

35. “There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.” – Maya Angelou

36. “Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go.’” – Maya Angelou

37. “I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I’m praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I’m grateful that I’m heard.” – Maya Angelou

38.  “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

39. “It’s very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race.” – Maya Angelou

40. “Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It’s very clear.” – Maya Angelou

41. “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

42. “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

43. “There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.” – Maya Angelou

44. “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

45. “In the flush of love’s light, we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.” – Maya Angelou

46. “We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.” – Maya Angelou

47. “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

48. “How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” – Maya Angelou

49. “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

50. “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” – Maya Angelou

51. “Information helps you to see that you’re not alone. That there’s somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who’ve all longed and lost, who’ve all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you’re not really any different from everyone else.” – Maya Angelou

52. “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

53. “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” – Maya Angelou

54. “I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.” – Maya Angelou

55. “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

56. “If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.” – Maya Angelou

57. “I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.” – Maya Angelou

58. “You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‘I’m a representative.’” – Maya Angelou

59. “Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‘That’s life.’” – Maya Angelou

60. “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

61. “Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin – find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.” – Maya Angelou

62. “Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more.” – Maya Angelou

63. “I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” – Maya Angelou

64. “Whenever something went wrong when I was young – if I had a pimple or if my hair broke – my mom would say, ‘Sister mine, I’m going to make you some soup.’ And I really thought the soup would make my pimple go away or my hair stronger.” – Maya Angelou

65. “During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not.” – Maya Angelou

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