Maya Angelou

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

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

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

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people but if we tried to shut up the insane we would run out of building materials.

Strange – is it not? That of the myriads who Before us passed the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the road Which to discover we must travel too.

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.

Conversation enriches the understanding; but solitude is the school of genius.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

All those moments are alive in us today. We may not visit them anymore, very often, but we carry them in our DNA, our blood, our bones; informing the breadth and beauty of who we now are; our lesson to be lived.

The walking of Man is falling forwards.

There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.