Maya Angelou Quotes

The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power or goodness.

The best comics enlist you to take accountability for who you are, whether you like it or not.

I exist, I am, I am here, I am becoming, I make my own life and no one else makes it for me. I must face my own shortcomings, mistakes, transgressions. No one can suffer my non-being as I do, but tomorrow is another day, and I must decide to leave my bed and live again. And if I fail, I don't have the comfort of blaming you or life or God.

Until you are willing to accept total and complete responsibility for every aspect of your life, your life will keep sending you experiences designed to get your attention.

I've come to believe that whoever I am didn't start on December 14, 1946, and isn't going to end on whatever that mysterious date is in the future.

Within yourself deliverance must be searched for, because each man makes his own prison.

It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

I believe that men are here to grow themselves into best good that they can be - at least, this is what I want to do.

Whatever causes you to drop your plan forward and open to your vision, your own, deeply personal vision of what your life could be at its very best, that's what I call meeting your rhinoceros.

Everybody is a hero in their own story if you just look.

Every character is asking: 'What's my place? Why am I here? I don't want the answer to be 'Just because.' You find your own purpose. Each finds the reason to be here and how to contribute.

The knowledge that we are responsible for living the life we have is our most powerful tool.

In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for 'finding himself.' If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.

I made my own assessment of my life, and I began to live it. That was freedom.

Inner-life questions are the kind everyone asks, with or without benefit of God-talk: 'Does my life have meaning and purpose?' 'Do I have gifts that the world wants and needs?' 'Whom and what shall I serve?' 'Whom and what can I trust?' 'How can I rise above my fears?'

I feel at various times in my life that I've been at a point where I had to choose between a death sentence and a life sentence. And I want to live. What do I do to live? What do I do to be vital? And the answer is always creativity. The answer is always art.

You come to realize that only one person can tell you what's expected of you, and that's you.

You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's all down to you, mate.

Yeah, it is, because it's a real discovery of your inner resources, you know. That's what my character is all about and what my playing is all about. But to get up there and just go inside and draw out something that makes you feel good first and foremost.

To me that's what Jobs was about. He said at the end of the movie, 'When you realize that the world was created by people no smarter than you, your life will change.' That, to me, is a message for right now and people figuring out what they're going to do with themselves.

I've learned that fear limits you and your vision. It serves as blinders to what may be just a few steps down the road for you. The journey is valuable, but believing in your talents, your abilities, and your self-worth can empower you to walk down an even brighter path. Transforming fear into freedom - how great is that?

At the end of the day, you're responsible for yourself and your actions and that's all you can control. So rather than be frustrated with what you can't control, try to fix the things you can.

If you do the things you enjoy and are good at, I really have a feeling that that will lead to having a fulfilling life, and people with fulfilling lives are able to be 'good people.'

The self-help section of national bookstore chains in America is one of the largest sections. In a way, it's nothing new, and in another way, very new. People have always searched for answers; that's why we have religion. People have always been seeking some relief from their own mortality.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay - and rise!