Maya Angelou – Inspiring Quotes to Live By

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.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us.

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

I’ve learned that people will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.

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

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.

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.

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

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

Maya Angelou – Inspiring Quotes to Live By part 2

I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves and tell me, ‘I love you.’

The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

The desire to reach the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.

I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated.

In diversity, there is beauty and there is strength.

No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life goes on, and it will be better tomorrow.

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

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

I know for sure that love saves me and that it is here to save us all.

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

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life’.

The honorary duty of a human being is to love.

Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation that no longer fits, or no longer exists.

Nothing will work unless you do.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that I’m going to be positive and not wake up feeling desperate.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

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

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.

Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive.

You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.

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

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

I’m a woman, phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, that’s me.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

I’ve learned that people forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

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

A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.