Maya Angelou Quotes About Education, Sourced and Sorted by Use

Maya Angelou spent the last thirty-two years of her life as a university professor, so her quotes about education come from inside the job rather than from a distance. The lines below are taken from her books, her interviews and her teaching career, and each one names where it comes from. They are sorted by what you are likely doing with them — a classroom wall, a card to a teacher, a graduation speech. At the end there is a short list of lines that circulate under her name without a traceable source.

Angelou was a teacher, not just a writer about teaching

In 1982 Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, appointed Angelou the Reynolds Professor of American Studies. The chair was a lifetime appointment. She held it until her death in May 2014, teaching undergraduate courses on poetry, race and American culture for more than three decades, and she taught on campus in person in most of those years. Wake Forest still keeps a memorial site for her.

She described the balance herself:

“I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.” — Maya Angelou, interview with USA Today, 2008

That is the line to open with if you are introducing her at a school event. It is short, it is genuinely hers, and it does the biographical work in one sentence.

For a classroom wall or bulletin board

Wall quotes need to be short enough to read from a desk and general enough to stay true all year.

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” — Letter to My Daughter (2008)

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” — Letter to My Daughter (2008)

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” — I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Angelou said this to Oprah Winfrey, who published it in What I Know For Sure (2014) and has repeated it often. The general idea circulated before her, but this wording is the one she gave Winfrey.

The Caged Bird line works particularly well in an English classroom, because it comes from a book most students will meet at some point and it explains why anyone bothers to write.

For a card to a teacher

A card wants a line that says something about the person receiving it, not about the student writing it.

“I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.” — USA Today, 2008

“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.” — I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” — Angelou, quoted in interviews and used by Wake Forest on its memorial page for her

The Caged Bird line about the human voice comes from the passage about Mrs. Bertha Flowers, the woman in Stamps, Arkansas, who read aloud to Angelou and got her speaking again after years of silence. If the teacher you are writing to taught you to read or to read aloud, that context is worth a sentence in the card. For more options, see our sorted lists of teacher quotes for cards and tributes and inspirational teacher quotes.

For a graduation speech

A speech can carry a longer quote, and Angelou’s prose rewards being read out in full rather than trimmed to a slogan.

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. Do not complain. Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking.” — Letter to My Daughter (2008)

That is one continuous passage in the book, and quoting all of it is more honest than pulling the rainbow line out on its own. It also gives a speech an actual structure: something happens, you decide how to answer it, you change what you can.

For a shorter closing line, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better” fits a graduation better than most, because it assumes the audience will keep learning after they leave.

Lines attributed to Angelou with no source

Several popular “Maya Angelou education quotes” appear only on quote aggregation sites, with no book, interview, speech or recording behind them. Using them in a printed programme or a graded essay is a risk.

• “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.” Everywhere online, sourced nowhere. No book, article or interview has been identified.
• “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.” Widely attributed to her, including by outlets that should check. No primary source has been produced.
• “Education helps one cease being intimidated by strange situations.” Circulates as an Angelou quote about education. No traceable original.
• “Nothing will work unless you do.” Attributed to Angelou and to John Wooden and to others. The phrasing predates all of them.

One more deserves its own note, because it is the most-shared line on the internet with her name on it: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Angelou did say versions of this. But the earliest known appearance is in Richard Evans’ Quote Book (1971), where it is credited to Carl W. Buehner, more than forty years before it became an Angelou quote. If you use it, credit it as a line she made famous rather than one she wrote.

How to cite a Maya Angelou quote

For book quotes, cite the title and year — I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) or Letter to My Daughter (2008) — plus a page number from the edition you used. For interview quotes, cite the publication and date. If the only thing you can find is a quote site, do not use the line in graded work. The rule is the same across our sourced collections, including Thomas Jefferson education quotes, where the misattribution problem is even worse.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where did Maya Angelou teach?
Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was appointed Reynolds Professor of American Studies in 1982, a lifetime chair, and taught there until she died in 2014.

What is Maya Angelou’s most famous quote about teaching?
“I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes,” from a 2008 USA Today interview.

Did Maya Angelou say “when you know better, do better”?
Yes, in that wording. She said it to Oprah Winfrey, who published it in What I Know For Sure (2014). The underlying idea is older than either of them.

Which Angelou quotes should I avoid using?
Any line you can only find on a quote site. The reading-habit quote and the “survive but thrive” quote are the two most common examples with no identified source.

For related pages, see education quotes: real, attributed lines on learning.