Maya Angelou Quotes

We live in a permanent state of bad faith, a mutual representation of ourselves to one another for the sake of remaining sane and following our biological imperative to continue as a species.

Artificial manners vanish the moment the natural passions are touched.

Even if they don't know it, everyone has the instinct to survive.

The presentations and conceptions of the average man of the world are formed and dominated, not by the full and pure desire for knowledge as an end in itself, but by the struggle to adapt himself favourably to the conditions of life.

People react to fear, not love; they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.

You can't go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people will pretend that they do.

We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.

The only infallible rule we know is, that the man who is always talking about being a gentleman never is one.

If modesty disappeared, so would exhibitionism.

We really are creatures of a violent world, biologically speaking - watching violence and learning about it is one of our cognitive drives.

No one is out to get you. It's just that... people are monkeys.

I think I enjoy playing human beings no matter the substance of their character.

Greed is a basic part of animal nature. Being against it is like being against breathing or eating. It means nothing.

As favor and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before.

Which, the first meeting with anybody is, you know, everybody is on their best behavior. It's only after you get to know them for a while that you figure out.

If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

Certainly I'm still mining my experiences as a journalist. I think it's no coincidence that all three of my novels basically are about how people act in a time of catastrophe. Do they go to their best self or their worst self?

No age, sex, or condition is above or below the absolute necessity of modesty; but without it one is vastly beneath the rank of man.

That human beings seek their own well-being and that of those close to them is not an especially provocative discovery. What is important is that this universal aspect of human nature persists no matter what economic system is in place; it merely expresses itself in different forms.

You'll find that I'm modest when you get to know me.

Wine is wont to show the mind of man.

All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.

I was never able to master the virtue of humility but I was able to master the appearance of humility.

Nature governs man by no principle more fixed than that which leads him to pursue his interest.

I don't have an ego. I check it at the door.