Maya Angelou has always been a huge inspiration to me. For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated with what an incredible person she was when she graced this world with her presence. She was such a strong individual and she was a beacon of hope for many. Through her struggles she became an inspiration, and she is someone I will always look up to. Within her writing is the message of hope, love and strength and I feel that those are all things that people needed when she was around, and is still needed now as well. Through her writing you can receive so much wisdom, and that is why Maya Angelou is so influential to me.

Here are some of the many quotes and words of wisdom that I adore of hers. I hope you enjoy them and receive as much from them as I do.

“The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.”

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

“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.”

“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Each of us has the right and the responsibility to asses the road which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the feature road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.”

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

“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”

“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

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

“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: I'm with you kid. Let's go.”

“I believe that every person is born with talent.”

“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.”

“The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.”

“There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.”

“My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.”

“At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.”

“Life loves the liver of it.”

“Something made greater by ourselves and in turn that makes us greater.”

“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.”

“I believe that each of us comes from the creator trailing wisps of glory.”

“I am a Woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal Woman,
that's me.”

“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.”

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

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”

“The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.”

“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”

“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.”

“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, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.”

“One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”

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

“Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.”

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

“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 at a commensurate speed.”

“Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence -- neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish -- it is an imponderably valuable gift. Each of us has a few minutes a day or a few hours a week which we could donate to an old folks home or a children's hospital ward. The elderly whose pillows we plump or whose water pitchers we refill may or may not thank us for our gift, but the gift is upholding the foundation of the universe.”

“A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.”

“I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.”