Maya Angelou

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life’.

I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.

Be present in all things and thankful for all things.

While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

Courage: the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.

You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.

There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.

Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.

Tomorrow is an old deceiver, and his cheat never grows stale.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good;be good for something.All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the story. Let nothing come between you and the light. Respect men and brothers only. When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God,

When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else… you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself.

He that has given today may, if he so please, take away tomorrow.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.

To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.