School Mother People My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors. - Maya Angelou
Music Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. - Maya Angelou
Habit Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. - Maya Angelou
Struggle Character Fact The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance. - Maya Angelou
Self Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable. - Maya Angelou
Home 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
If you see the President, tell him from me that whatever happens there will be no turning back. - Ulysses S. Grant
And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died. - Julien Benda
If a person studies too much and exhausts his reflective powers, he will be confused, and will not be able to apprehend even that which had been within the power of his apprehension. For the powers of the body are all alike in this respect. - Maimonides