54 Famous Quotes by Maya Angelou
4/4/1928 - (Present)
Also Known As:
Dr. Maya Angelou
Marguerite Ann Johnson
Marguerite Annie Johnson
Professions:
Information:
About Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is an American author and poet. She has published six autobiographies, five books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty years. She has received dozens of awards and over thirty honorary doctoral degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her life up to the age of seventeen, and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
Angelou's list of occupations includes pimp, prostitute, night-club dancer and performer, castmember of the musical Porgy and Bess, coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, author, journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the days of decolonization, and actor, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. Since 1982, she has taught at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she holds the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies. She was active in the Civil Rights movement, and worked with both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Since the 1990s she has made around eighty appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961.
I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.
Girls
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad itseems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned thatyou can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things:a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned thatregardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they'regone from your life. I've learned that making a living is not the same thing asmaking a life. I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on bothhands; you need to be able to throw some things back. I've learned that wheneverI decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I'velearned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. I've learned thatevery day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, orjust a friendly pat on the back. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what youdid, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Literary
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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I do not believe that the accident of birth makes people sisters and brothers. It makes them siblings. Gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood are conditions people have to work at. It's a serious matter. You compromise, you give, you take, you stand firm, and you're relentless...And it is an investment. 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.
Birth
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Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaken need for an unshakable God.
Needs
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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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.
Smile
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain. -Maya Angelou.
Change
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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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.
Action
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not ent
African american
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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.
Colors
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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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.
Country
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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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.
Diversity
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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I believe talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. Electricity will do all that. It makes no
Electricity
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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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.
Feelings
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace,love, prosperity, happiness... all the good things.
Joy
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility
Mankind
Quotes, by Maya Angelou
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