Maya Angelou

When people show you who they are, believe them, the first time. Not the 29th time!

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

Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

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

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

Nothing can dim the light that shines from within

Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

All information belongs to everybody all the time. It should be available. It should be accessible to the child, to the woman, to the man, to the old person, to the semiliterate, to the presidents of universities, to everyone. It should be open.

You did in your twenties what you knew how to do, and when you knew better you did better. And you should not be judged for the person that you were, but for the person that you're trying to be and the woman that you are now.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.