Verified Quotes
Every quote on this page is verified against the named source work.
Maya Angelou, Poet, memoirist, and survivor who turned silence into one of the great voices of the twentieth century, gets quoted everywhere and sourced almost nowhere. The 13 quotes below are different: each one is checked word for word against the cited work, starting with Still I Rise, not copied from aggregator sites that pass misattributions along. The source is named under every line, so you can trace each quote back to the page it came from.
Read Maya Angelou's full profile and how they reason →2 verified quotes
On staying silent about who you really are:
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Deciding whether to speak your story aloud instead of keeping it private:
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
2 verified quotes
On a job you cannot stand:
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
Deciding whether to trust someone who cannot yet love themselves:
I don't trust people who don't love themselves but tell me, I love you. There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
3 verified quotes
On rebuilding after being counted out:
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.Maya Angelou, Still I Rise
On refusing to shrink for someone else's comfort:
Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom?Maya Angelou, Still I Rise
On rising out of a painful past:
Out of the huts of history's shame I rise.Maya Angelou, Still I Rise
1 verified quote
On defining your own worth:
Phenomenal woman, that's me.Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman
1 verified quote
On what freedom actually feels like:
A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky.Maya Angelou, Caged Bird
2 verified quotes
Choosing between the job that pays and the work that means something:
I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
Deciding whether to uproot your life in search of belonging:
I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
1 verified quote
Naming the compounding forces working against you before deciding how to respond:
The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.Maya Angelou, Gather Together in My Name
1 verified quote
Grieving a home or family that no longer feels safe to return to:
The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.Maya Angelou, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes