Audre Lorde Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
-- Audre LordeSource : "The Cancer Journals". Book by Audre Lorde, 1980.
#Inspirational Quotes #Encouragement Quotes #Powerful Quotes
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“Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“‎Once we recognize what it is we are feeling, once we recognize we can feel deeply, love deeply, can feel joy, then we will demand that all parts of our lives produce that kind of joy.”
-- Audre Lorde -
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“I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't.”
-- Audre LordeSource : Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.90, Univ. Press of Mississippi
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“Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You [white women] fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you; we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs on the reasons they are dying.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.”
-- Audre Lorde -
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“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”
-- Audre LordeSource : Audre Lorde (1995). “The Black Unicorn: Poems”, p.25, W. W. Norton & Company
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“I do not want to be tolerated, or misnamed. I want to be recognized.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heel print upon another woman's face?”
-- Audre Lorde -
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“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.”
-- Audre LordeSource : Audre Lorde (2017). “A Burst of Light: And Other Essays”, p.130, Courier Dover Publications
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“The speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.”
-- Audre LordeSource : Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.115, Crossing Press
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“...oppression is as American as apple pie...”
-- Audre Lorde -
“Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“If you do not learn to hate you will never be lonely enough to love easily nor will you always be brave, although it does not grow any easier. Do not pretend to convenient beliefs, even when they are righteous; you will never be able to defend your city while shouting.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“I learned so much from listening to people. And all I knew was, the only thing I had was honesty and openness.”
-- Audre Lorde -
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“Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“Without community, there is no liberation.”
-- Audre LordeSource : Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.112, Crossing Press
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“Silence has never brought us anything of worth.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.”
-- Audre Lorde -
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“I am my best work - a series of road maps, reports, recipes, doodles, and prayers from the front lines.”
-- Audre Lorde -
“[Speaking] is never without fear; of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment, of pain, of death. But we have lived through all of those already, in silence, except death. And I remind myself all the time now, that if I were to have been born mute, and had maintained an oath of silence my whole life for safety, I would still have suffered, and I would still die.”
-- Audre Lorde
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