Maya Angelou was a revolutionary poet, writer, and civil rights activist who made a lasting impact on the world. Her words were filled with truth and wisdom that still resonates today. She once said, “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.” Here are some of her most inspiring quotes to help guide us in life.
25 Inspirational Maya Angelou Quotes
- “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style.”
- “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
- “Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud”
- “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.”
- “I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”
- “We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”
- “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
- “Nothing will work unless you do.”
- “You can’t really know where you are going until you have been where you are now.”
- The idea is to die young as late as possible.”
- “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
12. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
13. “If one has courage, nothing can dim the light which shines from within.”
14. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
15. “I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not necessarily the same thing as ‘making a life’.”
16. “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.”
17. “Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous or honest”
18. “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.”
19. “You can’t really know where your inspiration comes from or why it chooses you. It might come from God or the devil—you don’t know—but it will choose you…You must trust that something chose you for a reason…For whatever reason, at whatever time, my role is to write the book that wants to be written. And when it is done, it will belong to whoever needs it.”
20. “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty”
21. “You alone are enough… You have nothing to prove to anybody.”
22. You can’t use up creativity, the more you use it the more you have”.
23. “I’ve learned that courage was not the absence of fear but the triumph over it.”
24. “The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.”
25. “When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.”
“We are only as blind as we want to be”
“We are only as kind as we want to be”–Free Spirit Magazine
