Maya Angelou

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to asses the road which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the feature road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.

When you know better you do better.

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style.

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.

People ignore the thing they have the most power over. I know so many people who will go to a protest and do something big on an issue. But they won’t deal with that issue in their home.

This is the foundation of all. We are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

Responsibility is the price of greatness.

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

The god of victory is said to be one-handed, but peace gives victory on both sides.

For death is no more than turning us over from time to eternity.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it come to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Well, when it comes to social media – there are just times I turn off the world, you know. There are just some times you have to give yourself space to be quiet, which means you’ve got to set those phones down. You can’t be reading all that stuff. I mean, that’s like letting somebody just walk up and slap you, you know? You would never do that. You would never just sit there and go, slap me in the face and I’m good with it. No. So why would you open yourself up to that?

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning Good morning at total strangers.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.