Maya Angelou

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.

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

The sadness of the women’s movement is that they don’t allow the necessity of love. See, I don’t personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.

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

When you know better you do better.

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

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds me of those monkeys which cling by their tails – aye, whose tails contract about the limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and they hang suspended beyond the hunter’s reach long after they are dead. It is of no use to argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but merely, as it were a prehensile tail.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.

All excess is ill, but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and bad.

All diseases run into one, old age.

I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion’s roar.

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.

A home without a cat-and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat-may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?

A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.

The surest poison is time.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my answer.