Top 1076 Quotes & Sayings by Maya Angelou - Page 9

All great acheivements require time.

You don't want modesty, you want humility. Humility comes from inside out. It says someone was here before me and I'm here because I've been paid for. I have something to do and I will do that because I'm paying for someone else who has yet to come.

Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops.

The truth brings the past into the present and prepares us for the future. That's what truth does

My son is the best thing that ever happened to me. And through me - to a lot of people.

The honorary duty of a human being is to love.

Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.

Life loves the person who dares to live it.

We are only as blind as we want to be.

Don't face the day until you've faced God.

To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.

It's amazing. I can do anything. And do it well. Any good thing, I can do it. That's why I am who I am, yes, because God loves me and I'm amazed at it. I'm grateful for it.

A Woman in Harmony with her Spirit is like a river flowing.

The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don't know my story.

Love builds up the broken wall and straightens the crooked path. Love keeps the stars in the firmament and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides. Each of us is created of it and I suspect each of us was created for it.

Living a life is like constructing a building: if you start wrong, you'll end wrong.

I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people.

You can never be great at anything unless you love it.

Forgive yourself - no one else will.

Christians already? It seems to me that it takes a lifetime of work.

I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.

This is what I am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth.

Creativity or talent, like electricity, is something I don’t understand but something I’m able to harness and use. While electricity remains a mystery, I know I can plug into it and light up a cathedral or a synagogue or an operating room and use it to help save a life. Or I can use it to electrocute someone. Like electricity, creativity makes no judgment. I can use it productively or destructively. The important thing is to use it. You can’t use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have.

Let the brain go to work, let it meet the heart and you will be able to forgive.

Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls.

Thank you, always say thank you; it's the greatest gift you can give someone; because thank you is what you say to God.

The root cause of all the problems we have in the world today is ignorance of course. But most, polarization.

I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine ... before she realizes she's reading.

The truth is very important. No matter how negative it is, it is imperative that you learn the truth, not necessarily the facts. I mean, that, that can come, but facts can stand in front of the truth and almost obscure the truth. It is imperative that students learn the truth of our history.

Don't bring negative to my door.

Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives. The struggle for equality continues unabated, and the woman warrior who is armed with wit and courage will be among the first to celebrate victory.

We all have that possibility, that potential and that promise of seeing beyond the seeming.

I am a woman phenomenally, phenomenal woman that is your grandmother, that is your mother, that is your sister, that is you and that is me.

To those who are given much, much is expected.

When we decide to be happy we accept the responsibility to bring happiness to someone else.

Step off the road. Build yourself a brand new path.

This conference ? of, for and about women ? is, in itself, a rainbow in the clouds. When numerous women come together and show that they care, not only for themselves but also for each other, that is the occasion when a rainbow is shining down on somebody else.

I’ve got a magic charm That I keep up my sleeve, I can walk the ocean floor And never have to breathe.

Not everything you do is going to be a masterpiece, but you get art there and you try and sometimes it really happens. The other times you’re just stretching your soul.

When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound.

First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings.

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life.

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

Age is nothing; waking up is everything.

Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.

Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

You forgive yourself for every failure because you are trying to do the right thing. God knows that and you know it. Nobody else may know it.

The truth is you never can leave home. You take it with you everywhere you go. It's under your skin. It moves the tongue or slows it, colors the thinking, impedes upon the logic.

I think we have systematically and critically harmed ourselves and many young people by advising them not to try things.

What I think it really means is: I'm a teacher. I am a teacher. I teach all the time, as you do and as all of you do-whether we know it or not, whether we take responsibility for it or not. I hold nothing back because I want to see that light go off. I like to see the children say, 'I never thought of that before.' And I think, 'I've got them!'

Remember this: When you cross my doorstep, you have already been raised. With what you have learned...you know the difference between right and wrong. Do right. Don't anybody raise you from the way you have been raised. Know you will have to make adaptations, in love, in relationships, in friends, in society, in work, but don't let anybody change your mind.

The sisters and brothers that you meet give you the materials which your character uses to build itself. It is said that some people are born great, others achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. In truth, the ways in which your character is built have to do with all three of those. Those around you, those you choose, and those who choose you.

If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self.

Look for the beauty in things.

...We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. That sounds goody two-shoes, I know, but I believe that a diamond is the result of extreme pressure and time. Less time is crystal. Less than that is coal. Less than that is fossilized leaves. Less than that it's just plain dirt. In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats - maybe it's imperative that we encounter the defeats - but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be.

As a nurse, we have the opportunity to heal the heart, mind, soul and body of our patients, their families and ourselves. They may not remember your name but they will never forget the way you made them feel.