Author, Poet Maya Angelou Dies; Her Popular Quotes

Dr. Maya Angelou

(Poet, playwright, orator, civil activist)

April 4th, 1928 – May 28th, 2014

Dr. Maya Angelou, a writer, poet and civil rights campaigner lauded for her astonishing and powerful memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings dies at the age of 86. According to her family, Maya passed quietly in her home before 8:00 a.m. Wednesday. She is best known for writing a string of autobiographies, and a host of other equally insightful and powerful books, including Letter To My Daughter, I Shall Not Be Moved and A Song Flung Up To Heaven.

For more about her life and works, visit her website.

As a tribute to one of the most powerful voices in contemporary literature, Huithiang! Brings some of her most popular quotes:

Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.

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

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.

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

I do not trust people who don't love themselves and yet tell me, 'I love you.' There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.

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

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

You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

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.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

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 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.

The love of the family, the love of the person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society, a massive, powerful society.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.

Nothing will work unless you do.

It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

If someone shows you who they really are, believe them.

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.