You will be challenged mightily, and you will fall many times. It is upon you to increase your virtue, the virtue of courage-it is upon you. 'Commencement Address,' Letter To My DaughterĬhip Somodevilla/Getty Images News/Getty Images Here is some of our favorite advice that Maya Angelou gave to young grads. She spent her life as a teacher, after all, whether through the words she wrote and recited for the country, or through her years as a professor at Wake Forest University. There was nothing small or uninteresting about the life of Maya Angelou, even before every student in America learned her name.Īngelou's words have resonated throughout the decades, with a timelessness making them as relevant now as they were on the days she spoke them. By the time she published her first memoir in her 40's, she'd already worked as a fry cook, a nightclub performer, a madam for lesbian prostitutes, an opera cast member for Porgy and Bess, and a journalist in Ghana and Egypt during decolonialization. And who better, really, to give advice on jumping into life and seizing the best of it than Maya Angelou?Īngelou spent her young adulthood having more experiences than most people have in a lifetime. Throughout her decades in the public eye, Angelou also gave a whopping 18 commencement addresses to graduating classes. Angelou was a poet, an essayist, an author, a Civil Rights activist, and an icon.

Maya Angelou passed away Wednesday, but she leaves with us an enduring legacy.

Maya angelou quotes for graduation