Maya Angelou

Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence – neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish – it is an imponderably valuable gift.

Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, I’m going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that’s tough. I am going to snow anyway.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.

Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaken need for an unshakable God.

Wear none of thine own Chains; but keep free, whilst thou art free.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

The idea of perfection always gives one a chance to talk without knowing facts.

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night.

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

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.

Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.

The eye is easily frightened.

Some thoughts always find us young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.