Maya Angelou

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

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

I believe that every person is born with talent.

We love and lose in China, we weep on England’s moors, and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores. We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine. In minor ways we differ, in major we’re the same.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

All one needs to do is read – books, magazines, research the Internet – and pay attention to the influencers in their lives to discover the myriad people of strong moral character who have and still are making positive, meaningful contributions and differences in our world.

Don’t underestimate yourself or your possibilities.

I don’t like losers. Donald Trump

One does not always do the best there is. One does the best one can. – Catherine the Great

Whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom, and power.

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.

There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.

A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.

The greatest source of happiness is the ability to be grateful at all times.

Someone has defined genius as intensity of purpose: the ability todo, the patience to wait. Put these together and you have achievement.

I need to be surrounded by people as passionate and as dedicated as I am.

Bigger than life is not difficult for me. I am bigger than life.

Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.

If you’re proactive, you don’t have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.

While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.