Maya Angelou citations

“Nous nous délectons de la beauté du papillon, mais nous admettons rarement les changements qu’il a subi pour atteindre cette beauté.”

“La clef du succès, c'est de s’aimer soi-même, d’aimer ce que l'on fait et d’aimer la façon dont on le fait.”

“Il faut avoir assez de courage pour faire confiance à l'amour une fois de plus et toujours une fois de plus.”

“When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe.”

“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.”

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

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

“A Woman in harmony with her spirit
is like a river flowing.
She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination
prepared to be herself
and only herself”

“People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able to live at all. 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.”

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

“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”

“I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.”

“At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”

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

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”

“Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!”

“If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?”

“When you learn, teach, when you get, give.”

“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.”

“First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.”

“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.”

“Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it empowers us to develop courage; to trust that courage and build bridges with it;
to trust those bridges and cross over them so we can attempt to reach each other.”

“My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more intelligent and more educated than college professors.”

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

“I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me "I love you."”

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

“There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.”

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

“I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'.”

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

“When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness… all the good things.”

“What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.”