Writer , militant , entertainer and teacherMaya Angelouwas a beloved figure and menage name , a rarity for a distaff African American artist who confronted controversial topics in public . She talk about subspecies , wildness , gender and fateful history in her autobiographies , poem and speeches .
Angelou is perhaps best - known forher 1969 memoir"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , " which recounts her childhood in Stamps , Arkansas , and in San Francisco . Dealing with themes ofracism , identity and sexual violence , the Word won the hearts of literary critics and workaday lecturer alike and has been reprinted legion times . Yet , it is oftenbannedfrom schools for its depictions of assault and supposed " anti - white messaging . "
The success of that first memoir spurred Angelou to write six more autobiographies , in summation to three book of essay , several books of poetry , plays , screenplays and even two cookbooks . She clear dozens of honorary degrees ; a Presidential Medal of Freedom ; and a legacy that has endured via class curricula , contemporary Black libber writers and eveninternet memes . Angelou ’s words are so resonant that you ca n’t throw a stone in U.S. medium without rack up one of the late source ’s quotes .
" Maya Angelou reminds us all of our better selves , " aver Wagner - Martin . Let ’s dig deeper into the life of this renowned author , using five of the best Maya Angelou quotes .
1. “Believe people when they tell you who they are. They know themselves better than you.”
This quotation appeared in Angelou ’s 6th autobiography , " A Song throw out Up to Heaven , " which chronicle her life between 1965 and 1968 . In context , Angelou was referring to a man name Phil , who order her that he was ornery and a half-baked prevaricator when they first meet . week after , he purposely stopped on railroad tracks while Angelou was in his car , take aim off just in time to narrowly pretermit an go up train . The incident scared Angelou profoundly and convinced her that he was indeed as cantankerous as he had promulgate himself . But this was a lesson that likely reared its head many time over the course of her liveliness .
" People took advantage of her in the common elbow room — so she had learned to be suspect of motif , " says Wagner - Martin , recognise all the jobs Angelou worked to support herself and her boy ( these included fry cook , streetcar conductor , sex worker and nightspot singer ) . " By the clock time she became the telling public speaker that citizenry think back , she had lived through decades of indigence , decade of various betrayals : She knew how unkind people could be , but her message in her dynamic lectures remained positive . "
The inverted comma is sometimes formulate as , " When people show you who they are , believe them , " and Oprah Winfrey add her own twist on this . Winfrey regard Angelou a close supporter and wise man and in a1997 episodeof " The Oprah Winfrey Show , " Winfrey recalled discourse a fellow , who continuously stood her up , with Angelou . Angelou remind her of the life lesson and ask her why she did n’t get it the first meter he prove he was unreliable ? So , Winfrey say her adjunct to Angelou ’s quote is , " When people show you who they are , believe them the first time . "
2. “You may shoot me with your words / You may cut me with your eyes / You may kill me with your hatefulness / But still, like air, I’ll rise.”
Angelou was no stranger to adversity . She did n’t talk for several years after being raped as a child . She was deeply waste by the assassinations ofMartin Luther King Jr. andMalcolm X , as she ’d ferment with King and been Quaker with Malcolm . And she struggle with romance and money . Yet her narrative is not muck in cataclysm .
Before becoming a memoirist , Angelou was a poet . One of her most popular verse form , " Still I Rise , " accost her personal difficulties and the corporate hardships of grim people , respond to them with promise and perseverance . In the verse form , she recognize the hard truths of history while project a bright future .
" Her verse form , particularly the early ones , grew from songs that she had written while she was a dancer , singer and actress . Angelou take out from not only American music but African , from free forms that were cosmopolitan , and she accentuate the sounds her poems created , " say Wagner - Martin . " In these longer poems , she is address for so much human cognisance , such broad sympathy , that her personal Holy Writ reach into other citizenry ’s life , something like an hymn might in a musical program at church . "
3. “I’m a woman / Phenomenally / Phenomenal Woman / That’s me.”
This very popular poemalso come from Angelou ’s book of poetry " And Still I Rise " and was later anthologized in 1995 ’s " < a > Phenomenal Woman : Four Poems Celebrating Women . " It ’s a celebration of womanhood , where the speaker unit , presumably Angelou , explain what makes her so resistless to man , even though , as the verse form says , " I ’m not precious or built to suit a fashion model ’s size . "
In aninterview with Angelou , diary keeper Bill Moyers emphasized that she had " done almost anything [ she ] wanted to " and ask her about the price she paid for that freedom . Her response was , " You are only free when you realize you belong to no place — you belong every place — no place at all . "
" Place , then , was more of an attitude than it was a physical mansion . And she watch to expand that mother wit of a unchanging , given identity , during the years she lived in Africa , where she chance good utilization , good friends and self - confidence , " says Wagner - Martin . " Was her dwelling house in Arkansas ? Was it in California ? Was it in Africa ? Was it in New York ? And for the last 20 years of her lifespan , was it in Winston - Salem , North Carolina ? She manages through words to make readers see how unimportant ' place ' really is . "
4. “History, despite its wrenching pain / Cannot be unlived, but if faced / With courage, need not be lived again.”
In 1993 , Angelou became thesecond soul everto show a poem at a U.S. presidential inauguration . She write and scan " On the Pulse of Morning , " the poem in which the above note appear , at the first inaugural of President Bill Clinton .
The verse form was tuned to the inaugural spirit of renewal and hope , but it was still in Angelou ’s pilothouse . It highlighted themes of 1 , optimism and courage that she often riddle in her literature . " She understood how much braveness life demanded , and she take on any challenge that she saw , " say Wagner - Martin .
While the poem itself was n’t a fan favorite , people praised her operation of the verse form and the intake it provided . By this time , Angelou was well - show as an advocate for social change and a celebrity creative person . Her transcription of the poem won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word or Non - melodic Album in 1994 , and sales event of her other works increased in the wake of the startup .
5. “One must nurture the joy in one’s life so that it reaches full bloom.”
This was not a case of " do as I say and not as I do . " When it came to living a full life , Angelou led by example . " To read through Maya Angelou ’s various poem accumulation is to see her ontogenesis not only as a poet but as a human being , " allege Wagner - Martin . By the fourth dimension of her death in 2014 , Angelou had cement her status as " the the great unwashed ’s poet . "
In the above quote from " Rainbow in the Cloud : The Wisdom and Spirit of Maya Angelou , " Angelou made it clear that cultivating joy is inbuilt to a person ’s happiness , as was avail others . Asshe said once , " Be a rainbow in somebody else ’s swarm . … I ’ve had so many rainbows in my clouds . "
But she had no job putting someone out of her family for make a racist or homophobic jape or scuttlebutt . " I believe that a negative statement is poison,“Angelou severalize Winfreyin another consultation . " And if you allow it to perch in your house , in your mind , in your life , it can take you over . "
" She created these Maxim or sayings that acknowledged the widely based life she had lived , but she did not dwell on humanity ’s evils , " says Wagner - Martin .
Bonus: Quotes Misattributed to Maya Angelou
Many citation have beenmisattributed to Maya Angelou , perhaps as a mark of her popularity . In 2015 , a commemorative stamp for the authorfeatured the citation , " A shuttlecock does n’t sing because it has an answer , it sing because it has a call , " which was really from a verse form by children ’s book of account generator Joan Walsh Anglund .
Another coarse Angelou misattribution is , " People may forget what you allege — but they ’ll never forget how you made them feel . " Carl W. Buehner , an functionary in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter - day Saints , should get the quotation .
The quote , " There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you,“was primitively saidby African American writer Zora Neale Hurston .
And although Angelou often remark , " Courage is the most significant of all the virtues because without bravery , you ca n’t practice any other virtue consistently,“she did not originate it . It was Winston Churchill , streamlining a quotation from Samuel Johnson .
