Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent. "

Maya Angelou

Best

Intelligent

World

Related Quotes:

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

Maya Angelou

Save

Sure

" The only thing is, people have to develop courage. It is most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you can't practice any other virtues consistently. "

" 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. "

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

" Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. "

" I'm considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I've never been bored in my life. "

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

" Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn't be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely. "

" I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people. "

" When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, 'Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.' "

" I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English. "

" I write some country music. There's a song called 'I Hope You Dance.' Incredible. I was going to write that poem; somebody beat me to it. "

Maya Angelou

Dance

You

" I've read everything Thomas Wolfe ever wrote; my brother and I memorized whole chapters of 'You Can't Go Home Again' and 'Look Homeward, Angel.' "

" I created myself. I have taught myself so much. "

" I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me. "

" The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance. "

" When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished, and made less rich. "

Maya Angelou

Dreams

Musicians

" I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition. "

" I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss. "

Maya Angelou

Knowledge

Loss

" It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it. "

" My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang. "

Maya Angelou

Practice

Night

" The hope, the hope that lives in the breast of the black American, is just so tremendous that it overwhelms me sometimes. "

Maya Angelou

Black

Hope

" I'm just like you - I want to be a good human being. I'm doing my best, and I'm working at it. And I'm trying to be a Christian. I'm always amazed when people walk up to me and say, 'I'm a Christian.' I always think, 'Already? You've already got it?' I'm working at it. And at my age, I'll still be working at it at 96. "

" My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God - I thank God every time I think of it - I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult. "

" Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you're the funniest person you've ever heard of. "

" I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. "

" For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, 'Here I am, read me.' Over time I have learned I am at my best around books. "

Maya Angelou

Said

I Am

" I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I'm a human being, too. And I'm on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles. "

" I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I'm praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I'm grateful that I'm heard. "

Maya Angelou

Know

Thankful

" You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise. "

Maya Angelou

Rise

History