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Maya Angelou


American
April 4, 1928
Poet
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Achievement brings its own anticlimax.


Maya Angelou
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Nothing will work unless you do.


Maya Angelou
Tags: Work You Will
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In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.


Maya Angelou
Tags: Education Me Many
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If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.


Maya Angelou
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There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.


Maya Angelou
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I was married a few times, and one of my husbands was jealous of me writing.


Maya Angelou
Tags: Me Writing Times
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Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery.


Maya Angelou
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I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is.


Maya Angelou
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
Maya Angelou
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I'm just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression.


Maya Angelou
Tags: Food Just Who
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I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.


Maya Angelou
There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.
Maya Angelou
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I think that that's the wisest thing - to prevent illness before we try to cure something.


Maya Angelou
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If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart.


Maya Angelou
Tags: Hope People Then
I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.
Maya Angelou
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Hope Love Full
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I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.


Maya Angelou
Tags: Who Man Kind
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
Tags: Home Go Where
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I'm interested in women's health because I'm a woman. I'd be a darn fool not to be on my own side.


Maya Angelou
Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Good Make Any
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
Tags: You People Them
Whenever I'm around some who is modest, I think, 'Run like hell and all of fire.' You don't want modesty, you want humility.
Maya Angelou
Tags: You Like Think
I've never had a dislike for men. I've been badly treated by some. But I've been loved greatly by some. I married a lot of them.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Men Had Been
A cynical young person is almost the saddest sight to see, because it means that he or she has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Because He See
I write some country music. There's a song called 'I Hope You Dance.' Incredible. I was going to write that poem; somebody beat me to it.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Music Hope You
The only thing is, people have to develop courage. It is most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you can't practice any other virtues consistently.
Maya Angelou
Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life.
Maya Angelou
Tags: You Life Very
Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright's pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Peace Life Our
I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I'm praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I'm grateful that I'm heard.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Me Just Know
I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I'm a human being, too. And I'm on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Than Would Being
In the flush of love's light, we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Will Love Which
My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.
Maya Angelou
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.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Truth Me More
If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Best Very Than
I could fall in love with a sumo wrestler if he told stories and made me laugh. Obviously, it would be easier if someone was African-American and lived next door and went to the same church. Because then I wouldn't have to translate.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Me Because Would
For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Time Best Me
The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you're wrinkled.
Maya Angelou
Tags: You About Really
I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Good Change You
I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, 'You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.'
Maya Angelou
Tags: Truth You Know
At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in Medina and you could see a person come in, black, white, it didn't matter. You said, 'That's an American' because there's a readiness to smile and to talk to people.
Maya Angelou
Tags: Time Smile You