Maya Angelou

Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.

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.

We need much less than we think we need.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

I am a Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, that’s me.

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.

I am neither of the East nor of the West, no boundaries exist within my breast.

I was the same old me. Just like the Moon yesterday. But because of all the other factors that came to play, the darkness, the brightness, the blood red color. They all were a reflection, a projection due to the perfect set of circumstances. The Moon was still the Moon. But it was still labeled the Super Blue Blood Moon, Just so we can have some understanding, but, again I’ll state, the Moon was still just the Moon, just like I was still just me. Whatever you project on me, and I reflect back, doesn’t then make me become a new person, it’s just a reflection of your projection. I am still just me.

What is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.

Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint.

Associate reverently, as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.

I often think that men don’t understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.

I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

Youth is wasted on the young.

One of the benefits of a college education is to show the boy its little avail.

If everyone is a product of this society, who will say the things that need to be said, and do the things that need to be done, without compromise?

The money men make lives after them.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.