Quote

I am convinced that most people do not grow up ... our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias.

Maya Angelou

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Maya Angelou
Age: 86 †
Born: 1928
Born: April 4
Died: 2014
Died: May 28
Author
Autobiographer
Comedian
Dancer
Essayist
Film Director
Film Producer
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Politician
St. Louis
Missouri
Marguerite Annie Johnson
Marguerite Johnson
Marguerite Ann Johnson
Marguerite Anne Johnson
Children
Innocent
Real
Convinced
People
Inside
Grow
Grows
Stills
Magnolias
Still
Selves
Self
Shy

More quotes by Maya Angelou

Image
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.
Maya Angelou
Image
Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.
Maya Angelou
Image
To be human is to be challenged to be more divine. Not even to try to meet such a challenge is the biggest defeat imaginable.
Maya Angelou
Image
By no amount of agile exercising of a wistful imagination could my mother have been called lenient. Generous she was indulgent never. Kind, yes, permissive, never. In her world, people she accepted paddled their own canoes, pulled their own weight, put their own shoulders to their own plows and pushed like hell.
Maya Angelou
Image
It is better to control oneself, if one can, and not hit back. But on certain occasions, it is imperative to defend oneself. I don't think it's fair to ask anybody not to defend herself or himself.
Maya Angelou
Image
Success is loving life and daring to live it.
Maya Angelou
Image
You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.
Maya Angelou
Image
I believed that there was a God because I was told it by my grandmother and later by other adults. But when I found that I knew not only that there was God but that I was a child of God, when I understood that, when I comprehended that, more than that, when I internalized that, ingested that, I became courageous.
Maya Angelou
Image
Out of the huts of history's shame I rise.
Maya Angelou
Image
Let us live so we do not regret years of inertia and ignorance, so when we die we can say all of our energy was dedicated to the noble liberation of the human mind and spirit, beginning with my own.
Maya Angelou
Image
Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: 'I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.'
Maya Angelou
Image
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
Maya Angelou
Image
You never get over the fear of writing.
Maya Angelou
Image
When we decide to be happy we accept the responsibility to bring happiness to someone else.
Maya Angelou
Image
We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate - thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.
Maya Angelou
Image
I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good.
Maya Angelou
Image
Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls.
Maya Angelou
Image
Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.
Maya Angelou
Image
I am serious, so I laugh a lot. You need to laugh. You don't laugh enough. I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.
Maya Angelou
Image
Love liberates. Love - not sentimentality, not mush - but true love gives you enough courage that you can say to somebody, Don't do that, baby. And the person will know you're not preaching but teaching.
Maya Angelou