Top 500 Maya Angelou Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I’m a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.”

— Maya Angelou

402. “Love recognizes no barriers.”

— Maya Angelou

403. “We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.”

— Maya Angelou

404. “Yet it is only love which sets us free.”

— Maya Angelou

405. “I come as one but I stand as ten thousand.”

— Maya Angelou

406. “Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, “I’m going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that’s tough. I am going to snow anyway.””

— Maya Angelou

407. “Sisterhood means if you happen to be in Burma and I happen to be in San Diego and I’m married to someone who is very jealous and you’re married to somebody who is very possessive, if you call me in the middle of the night, I have to come.”

— Maya Angelou

408. “Listen carefully to what country people call mother wit. In those homely sayings are couched the collective wisdom of generations.”

— Maya Angelou

409. “I am convinced that words are things, and we simply don’t have the machinery to measure what they are. I believe that words are tangible things...”

— Maya Angelou

410. “In a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists.”

— Maya Angelou

411. “Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear, I rise.”

— Maya Angelou

412. “I believe in living a poetic life, an art full life. Everything we do from the way we raise our children to the way we welcome our friends is part of a large canvas we are creating.”

— Maya Angelou

413. “Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.”

— Maya Angelou

414. “Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it’s right, it’s easy. It’s the other way round, too. If it’s slovenly written, then it’s hard to read. It doesn’t give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.”

— Maya Angelou

415. “Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening.”

— Maya Angelou

416. “In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.”

— Maya Angelou

417. “In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons.”

— Maya Angelou

418. “When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’”

— Maya Angelou

419. “Be courageous, but not foolhardy. Walk proud as you are.”

— Maya Angelou

420. “If we live long enough, we may even get over war. I imagine a time when somebody will mention the word war and everyone in the room will start to laugh. And what do you mean war?”

— Maya Angelou

421. “While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man’s humanity to man.”

— Maya Angelou

422. “Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies, Im Not Cute Or Built To Fit A Fashion Models Size.”

— Maya Angelou

423. “When people see the laughing face, even if they’re jealous of it, their burden is lightened. But do it first for yourself. Laugh and dare to try to love somebody, starting with yourself.”

— Maya Angelou

424. “Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.”

— Maya Angelou

425. “Continue to plant a kiss of concern on the cheek of the sick and the aged and infirm and count that actions as natural and to be expected.”

— Maya Angelou

426. “I am a very religious person, so it is the presence of God, the constant unwavering, unrelenting presence of God which continues to help me to keep a character which I am proud to show.”

— Maya Angelou

427. “Let me tell so much truth. I want to tell the truth in my work. The truth will lead me to all.”

— Maya Angelou

428. “We must be warriors in the struggle against ignorance.”

— Maya Angelou

429. “When things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleep.”

— Maya Angelou

430. “I’m young as morning and fresh as dew. Everybody loves me and so do you.”

— Maya Angelou

431. “I’m grateful to be an American. I am grateful that we can be angry at the terrorist assault and at the same time be intelligent enough not to hold a grudge against every Arab and every Muslim.”

— Maya Angelou

432. “Each of us has a responsibility for being alive: one responsibility to creation, of which we are a part, another to the creator a debt we repay by trying to extend our areas of comprehension.”

— Maya Angelou

433. “Home is that youthful region where a child is the only real living inhabitant. Parents, siblings, and neighbors are mysterious apparitions who come, go, and do strange unfathomable thing in and around the child, the region’s only enfranchised citizen.”

— Maya Angelou

434. “You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‘I’m a representative. ’”

— Maya Angelou

435. “Having courage does not mean we are unafraid.”

— Maya Angelou

436. “If more Africans had eaten missionaries, the continent would be in better shape.”

— Maya Angelou

437. “I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?”

— Maya Angelou

438. “I admire people who dare to take the language, English, and understand it and understand the melody.”

— Maya Angelou

439. “Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.”

— Maya Angelou

440. “Language. I loved it. And for a long time I would think of myself, of my whole body, as an ear.”

— Maya Angelou

441. “Don’t hesitate to learn the most painful aspects of our history, understand it.”

— Maya Angelou

442. “When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one – it’s the first blow in a suicidal movement.”

— Maya Angelou

443. “It’s hard because people think they have something to lose and the truth is they have everything to gain in trying to love somebody.”

— Maya Angelou

444. “I also wear a hat or a very tightly pulled head tie when I write. I suppose I hope by doing that I will keep my brains from seeping out of my scalp and running in great gray blobs down my neck, into my ears, and over my face.”

— Maya Angelou

445. “And if a person is religious, I think it’s good, it helps you a bit. But if you’re not, at least you can have the sense that there is a condition inside you which looks at the stars with amazement and awe.”

— Maya Angelou

446. “It is imperative that young white men and women study the black American history. It is imperative that blacks and whites study the Asian American history.”

— Maya Angelou

447. “And one of my absolute favorite quotes of all-time, one that I’ve adopted as one of my greatest life mottos: Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I’m with you kid. Let’s go.””

— Maya Angelou

448. “My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy.”

— Maya Angelou

449. “Hope does not take away your problems. It can lift you above them.”

— Maya Angelou

450. “Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.”

— Maya Angelou