Maya Angelou

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

I encourage you to live with life. Be courageous, adventurous. Give us a tomorrow, more than we deserve.

I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare.

Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet.

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.

A woman who is convinced that she deserves to accept only the best challenges herself to give the best. Then she is living phenomenally.

We are as much informed of a writer’s genius by what he selects as by what he originates.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.

As the Spanish proverb says, He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

Work is always an antidote to depression.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

What if… everything you are going through is preparing you for what you asked for?

Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.

We run to win, not just to be in the race.

Patience makes lighter What sorrow may not heal.

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.