Top 500 Maya Angelou Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That’s why it’s important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are.”

— Maya Angelou

52. “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

— Maya Angelou

53. “Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”

— Maya Angelou

54. “Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space. Invite one to stay.”

— Maya Angelou

55. “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”

— Maya Angelou

56. “Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.”

— Maya Angelou

57. “This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.”

— Maya Angelou

58. “One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”

— Maya Angelou

59. “The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

— Maya Angelou

60. “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”

— Maya Angelou

61. “You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.”

— Maya Angelou

62. “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”

— Maya Angelou

63. “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.”

— Maya Angelou

64. “A woman’s heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.”

— Maya Angelou

65. “And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.”

— Maya Angelou

66. “Love life. Engage in it. Give it all you’ve got. Love it with a passion because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.”

— Maya Angelou

67. “If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?”

— Maya Angelou

68. “Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.”

— Maya Angelou

69. “In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.”

— Maya Angelou

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

— Maya Angelou

71. “You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still like dust, I’ll rise.”

— Maya Angelou

72. “Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”

— Maya Angelou

73. “We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.”

— Maya Angelou

74. “If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.”

— Maya Angelou

75. “I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people.”

— Maya Angelou

76. “I want to thank you, Lord, for life and all that’s in it. Thank you for the day and for the hour, and the minute.”

— Maya Angelou

77. “Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.”

— Maya Angelou

78. “When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”

— Maya Angelou

79. “To those who are given much, much is expected.”

— Maya Angelou

80. “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”

— Maya Angelou

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

— Maya Angelou

82. “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t laugh.”

— Maya Angelou

83. “I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”

— Maya Angelou

84. “If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning ‘Good morning’ at total strangers.”

— Maya Angelou

85. “Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.”

— Maya Angelou

86. “Freedom is never free.”

— Maya Angelou

87. “I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.”

— Maya Angelou

88. “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.”

— Maya Angelou

89. “Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your mind to the wonders of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself.”

— Maya Angelou

90. “While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.”

— Maya Angelou

91. “Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.”

— Maya Angelou

92. “Anything that works against you can also work for you once you understand the Principle of Reverse.”

— Maya Angelou

93. “The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don’t know my story...”

— Maya Angelou

94. “Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.”

— Maya Angelou

95. “A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.”

— Maya Angelou

96. “A Woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself.”

— Maya Angelou

97. “Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.”

— Maya Angelou

98. “Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.”

— Maya Angelou

99. “Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.”

— Maya Angelou

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

— Maya Angelou