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You May Not Remember What A Person Said To You, You May Not Remember What A Person Did To You, But You Will Never Forget How A Person Made You Feel!
-Maya Angelou
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You May Not Remember

Maya Angelou
...
You May Not Remember What A Person Said To You, You May Not Remember What A Person Did To You, But You Will Never Forget How A Person Made You Feel!

Understanding the Quote: "you may not remember what a person said to you, you may..."

This quote by Maya Angelou reflects deeply on the theme of may. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under May, Remember, Never Forget, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Maya Angelou interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou is celebrated for insightful thoughts on may and remember. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
May
Remember
Never Forget
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Done
Another Life
To Be Angry Is Very Good. It Burns Out Things And Leaves Nutrients In The Soil. You Should Always Be Ready To Be Angry At Injustice And Cruelty.
Anger
Soil
Injustice
I'm Young As Morning And Fresh As Dew. Everybody Loves Me And So Do You.
Confidence
Morning
Believe In Yourself
We All Should Know That Diversity Makes For A Rich Tapestry, And We Must Understand That All The Threads Of The Tapestry Are Equal In Value No Matter What Their Color.
Color
Kwanzaa
Common Threads
I Am A Very Religious Person, So It Is The Presence Of God, The Constant Unwavering, Unrelenting Presence Of God Which Continues To Help Me To Keep A Character Which I Am Proud To Show.
Religious
Character
Proud
Life Loves To Be Taken By The Lapel And Told: 'i'm With You Kid. Let's Go.'
Love
Inspirational
Life
This Conference ? Of, For And About Women ? Is, In Itself, A Rainbow In The Clouds. When Numerous Women Come Together And Show That They Care, Not Only For Themselves But Also For Each Other, That Is The Occasion When A Rainbow Is Shining Down On Somebody Else.
Clouds
Rainbow
Shining
When I'm Writing, I Am Trying To Find Out Who I Am, Who We Are, What We're Capable Of, How We Feel, How We Lose And Stand Up, And Go On From Darkness Into Darkness.
Writing
Who I Am
Darkness
I Am Serious, So I Laugh A Lot. You Need To Laugh. You Don't Laugh Enough. I Don't Trust Anyone Who Doesn't Laugh.
Laughing
Needs
Serious
During Bad Circumstances, Which Is The Human Inheritance, You Must Decide Not To Be Reduced. You Have Your Humanity, And You Must Not Allow Anything To Reduce That. We Are Obliged To Know We Are Global Citizens. Disasters Remind Us We Are World Citizens, Whether We Like It Or Not.
Humanity
World
Citizens
Money And Power Can Liberate Only If They Are Used To Do So. They Can Imprison And Inhibit More Finally Than Barred Windows And Iron Chains.
Iron
Window
Used
The Trouble For The Thief Is Not How To Steal The Chief’s Bugle, But Where To Blow It.
Life
Blow
Thieves
The Quality Of Strength Lined With Tenderness Is An Unbeatable Combination, As Are Intelligence And Necessity When Unblunted By Formal Education.
Inspirational
Strength
Education
I Love Wisdom. And You Can Never Be Great At Anything Unless You Love It. Not Be In Love With It, But Love The Thing, Admire The Thing. And It Seems That If You Love The Thing, And You Don't Just Want To Possess It, It Will Find You.
Want
Admire
Love Wisdom
Courage - You Develop Courage By Doing Small Things Like Just As If You Wouldn't Want To Pick Up A 100-pound Weight Without Preparing Yourself.
Weight
Want
Pounds
There Is No Greater Agony Than Bearing An Untold Story Inside You.
Inspirational
Moving On
Powerful
Grace Is Like A Lake Of Drinkable Water Right Outside Your Door. But You Stay Inside And Die Of Thirst.
Lakes
Doors
Water
There Is An Intimate Laughter To Be Found Only Among Friends
Laughter
Inspirational Friendship
Intimate
Each Time I Write A Book, Every Time I Face That Yellow Pad, The Challenge Is So Great. I Have Written Eleven Books, But Each Time I Think, ‘uh Oh, They’re Going To Find Out Now. I’ve Run A Game On Everybody And They’re Going To Find Me Out.
Inspiring
Running
Book
The Woman Who Truly Intends To Live A Good Life Is Already Living Phenomenally Since Intent Is Part Of The Achievement.
Good Life
Achievement
Life Is
Most Plain Girls Are Virtuous Because Of The Scarcity Of Opportunity To Be Otherwise.
Beauty
Girl
Opportunity
Let's Tell The Truth To People. When People Ask, 'how Are You?' Have The Nerve Sometimes To Answer Truthfully. You Must Know, However, That People Will Start Avaoiding You Because, They, Too, Have Knees That Pain Them And Heads That Hurt And They Don't Want To Know About Yours. But Think Of It This Way: If People Avoid You, You Will Have More Time To Meditate And Do Fine Research On A Cure For Whatever Truly Afflicts You.
Hurt
Honesty
Pain
Courage - You Develop Courage By Doing Small Things Like Just As If You Wouldn't Want To Pick Up A 100-pound Weight Without Preparing Yourself.
Weight
Want
Pounds
I Refuse To Allow Any Man-made Differences To Separate Me From Any Other Human Beings.
Men
Differences
Made
When I Say 'i Am A Christian', I'm Not Shouting 'i'm Saved'. I'm Whispering 'i Get Lost'. That Is Why I Chose This Way.
Christian
Whispering
Way
It's In The Click Of My Heels, The Bend Of My Hair, The Palm Of My Hand, The Need Of My Care, 'cause I'm A Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, That's Me.
Hair
Hands
Needs
The Problem I Have With Haters Is That They See My Glory, But They Don't Know My Story.
Inspiring
Thoughtful
Loving Life
Whether You Are Happy Or Whether You Are Sad, It Is Wise To Remember You Are Really In Process.
Wise
Remember You
Remembers You
Modesty Is A Learned Affectation. And As Soon As Life Slams The Modest Person Against The Wall, That Modesty Drops.
Wall
Modesty
Slam
Prepare Yourself So That You Can Be A Rainbow In Somebody Else's Cloud.
Clouds
Rainbow
Not Everything You Do Is Going To Be A Masterpiece, But You Get Art There And You Try And Sometimes It Really Happens. The Other Times You’re Just Stretching Your Soul.
Art
Soul
Trying
Hope And Fear Cannot Occupy The Same Space. Invite One To Stay.
Space
Mind Your Own Business
Hopes And Fears
The Nice Thing About Hope Is That You Can Give It To Someone Else, Someone Who Needs It Even More Than You Do, And You Will Find You Have Not Given Yours Away At All.
Nice
Giving
Needs
You Might Encounter Defeats But You Must Never Be Defeated... Love A Lot. Laugh A Lot At The Silliest Things And Be Very Serious... Love Life.
Uplifting
Love Life
Laughing
Sometimes All You Need In Love Is To Make Each Other Happy, To Make Each Other Laugh. So Long As You Can Still Do That Ten Years Down The Line Then I Think You're Gold. Never Let The Laughter Slip From Your Relationship.
Laughter
Romantic Love
Love Is
I'm Convinced That I'm A Child Of God. That's Wonderful, Exhilarating, Liberating, Full Of Promise. But The Burden Which Goes Along With That Is, I'm Convinced That Everybody Is A Child Of God. . . . I Weep A Lot. I Thank God I Laugh A Lot, Too. The Main Thing In One's Own Private World Is To Try To Laugh As Much As You Cry.
Children
Godly
Laughing
People Feel Guilty. And Guilt Is Stymieing. Guilt Immobilizes. Guilt Closes The Air Ducts And The Veins, And Makes People Ignorant.
Air
People
Ignorant
If I Have A Monument In This World, It Is My Son.
Thank You
Mother
Children
All Great Artists Draw From The Same Resource: The Human Heart, Which Tells Us That We Are All More Alike Than We Are Unalike.
Heart
Artist
Resources
I Know That You That You May Encounter Many Defeats, But You Must Not Be Defeated. If You Accept That You Have Been Defeated, You Give Power To The Force That Is Trying To Defeat You.
Defeated You
Giving
Trying
You Should Be Angry. You Must Not Be Bitter. Bitterness Is Like Cancer. It Eats Upon The Host. It Doesn't Do Anything To The Object Of Its Displeasure. So Use That Anger. You Write It. You Paint It. You Dance It. You March It. You Vote It. You Do Everything About It. You Talk It. Never Stop Talking It.
Cancer
Writing
Talking
I Was Raped When I Was Very Young. I Told My Brother The Name Of The Person Who Had Done It. Within A Few Days The Man Was Killed. In My Child's Mind--seven And A Half Years Old--i Thought My Voice Had Killed Him. So I Stopped Talking For Five Years.
Brother
Children
Men
If We Don't Plant The Right Things, We Will Reap The Wrong Things. It Goes Without Saying. And You Don't Have To Be, You Know, A Brilliant Biochemist And You Don't Have To Have An Iq Of 150. Just Common Sense Tells You To Be Kind, Ninny, Fool. Be Kind.
Common Sense
Be Kind
Fool
We All Have That Possibility, That Potential And That Promise Of Seeing Beyond The Seeming.
Promise
Possibility
Seeming
If You Happen To Fall In Love With Someone In Another Race, It's More Difficult, Because You Have To Translate Yourself.
Falling In Love
Race
Difficult
Love Is That Condition In The Human Spirit So Profound That It Empowers Us To Develop Courage; To Trust That Courage And Build Bridges With It; To Trust Those Bridges And Cross Over Them So We Can Attempt To Reach Each Other.
Inspirational
Love Is
Bridges
As Far As I Knew White Women Were Never Lonely, Except In Books. White Men Adored Them, Black Men Desired Them And Black Women Worked For Them.
Lonely
Loneliness
Book
We Are Growing Up. We Are Growing Up! Out Of The Idiocies - The Ignorances Of Racism And Sexism And Ageism And All Those Ignorances.
Growing Up
Ignorance
Racism
I Long For The Time When All Human History Is Taught As One History, Because It Really Is.
Long
Taught
Humans
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.
Inspirational
Happiness
Education
The Desire To Reach For The Stars Is Ambitious. The Desire To Reach Hearts Is Wise.
Inspirational
Life
Inspiring
Strictly Speaking, One Cannot Legislate Love, But What One Can Do Is Legislate Fairness And Justice. If Legislation Does Not Prohibit Our Living Side By Side, Sooner Or Later Your Child Will Fall On The Pavement And I'll Be The One To Pick Her Up. Or One Of My Children Will Not Be Able To Get Into The House And You'll Have To Say, "stop Here Until Your Mom Comes Here." Legislation Affords Us The Chance To See If We Might Love Each Other.
Love
Mom
Children
Don't Let The Man Bring You Down.
Freedom
Men
I Certainly Do Not Adore The Writer's Discipline. I Have Lost Lovers, Endangered Friendships, And Blundered Into Eccentricity, Impelled By A Concentration Which Usually Is To Be Found Only In The Minds Of People About To Be Executed In The Next Half Hour.
Lost Love
Discipline
People
I Long, As Does Every Human Being, To Be At Home Wherever I Find Myself.
Travel
Home
Positivity
Freedom Is Never Free.
Veterans Day
Veteran
I Don't Believe An Accident Of Birth Makes People Sisters Or Brothers. It Makes Them Siblings, Gives Them Mutuality Of Parentage. Sisterhood And Brotherhood Is A Condition People Have To Work At.
Sister
Brother
Sibling
My Mission In Life Is Not Merely To Survive, But To Thrive; And To Do So With Some Passion, Some Compassion, Some Humor, And Some Style
Inspirational
Life
Inspiring
Life Loves The Liver Of It. You Must Live And Life Will Be Good To You.
Love Life
Be Good
Liver
Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing. But If It's Right, It's Easy. It's The Other Way Round, Too. If It's Slovenly Written, Then It's Hard To Read. It Doesn't Give The Reader What The Careful Writer Can Give The Reader.
Reading
Writing
Giving
I Find It Interesting That The Meanest Life, The Poorest Existence, Is Attributed To God's Will, But As Human Beings Become More Affluent, As Their Living Standard And Style Begin To Ascend The Material Scale, God Descends The Scale Of Responsibility At Commensurate Speed.
Life
God
Responsibility
Eating Is So Intimate. It's Very Sensual. When You Invite Someone To Sit At Your Table And You Want To Cook For Them, You're Inviting A Person Into Your Life.
Sensual
Tables
Want
I Admire People Who Dare To Take The Language, English, And Understand It And Understand The Melody.
People
Language
Admire
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