Maya Angelou

Something made greater by ourselves and in turn that makes us greater.

I answer the heroic question Death where is thy sting? It is here in my heart and mind and memories

Some critics will write ‘Maya Angelou is a natural writer’ – which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.

The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder – in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.

I am a Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, that’s me.

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

Society is a hospital of incurables.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.

Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope.

The self divides into ten billion distinct illuminating spirits. Distinguish these without falling into names and classifications.

Art is the path of the creator to his work.

I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also.

All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

Self-suggestion makes you master of yourself.

We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.

Avoid popularity it has many snares and no real benefit.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

Fear always springs from ignorance.

Nothing makes a man so selfish as work.