Audre Lorde Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Audre Lorde on Wise Famous Quotes.
In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.
If I do not bring all of who I am to whatever I do, then I bring nothing, or nothing of lasting worth, for I have withheld my essence.
When the desire for definition, self or otherwise, comes out of a desire for limitation rather than a desire for expansion, no true face can emerge.
Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.
When you reach out and touch other human beings, it doesn't matter whether you call it therapy or teaching or poetry.
If I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it. That's the beginning of social protest.
What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heel print upon another woman's face?
Guilt and defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we all flounder; they serve none of our futures.
We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued within western society.
We recognize that all knowledge is mediated through the body and that feeling is a profound source of information about our lives
If you don't define yourself for yourself then you will be crushed into other's fantasies of you and eaten alive
If our history has taught us anything, it is that action for change directed against the external conditions of our oppressions is not enough.
What gets me about the United States is that it pretends to be honest and therefore has so little room to move toward hope.
When I use my strength in the service of my vision it makes no difference whether or not I am afraid.
Every Black woman in America lives her life somewhere along a wide curve of ancient and unexpressed angers.
But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.
If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.
One shard of brilliant summer pierced me
and remains.
By this only
unregenerate bone
I am not dead, but waiting.
and remains.
By this only
unregenerate bone
I am not dead, but waiting.
We must recognize and nurture the creative parts of each other without always understanding what will be created.
I forgot what we were celebrating. Because we were always celebrating something, a new job, a new poem, a new love, a new dream.
Always
in the middle
of our bloodiest battles
you lay down your arms
like flowering mines
to conqueror me home,
-Audre Lorde
in the middle
of our bloodiest battles
you lay down your arms
like flowering mines
to conqueror me home,
-Audre Lorde
When times are hard, do something. If it works, do it some more. If it does not work, do something else. But keep going.
Art is not living. It is a use of living. The artist has the ability to take that living and use it in a certain way, and produce art.
Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare.
I am a Black Lesbian Feminist Warrior Poet Mother, stronger for all my identities, and I am indivisible.
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.
I am a post-mastectomy woman who believes our feelings need voice in order to be recognized, respected, and of use.
The love expressed between women is particular and powerful because we have had to love in order to live; love has been our survival.
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.
Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.
I am my best work - a series of road maps, reports, recipes, doodles, and prayers from the front lines.
There are many kinds of open ... Love is a word, another kind of open ... Take my word for jewel in your open light.
I am not just a lesbian. I am not just a poet. I am not just a mother. Honor the complexity of your vision and yourselves.
The absence of any consideration of lesbian consciousness or the consciousness of third world women leaves a serious gap within this conference ...
Change is the immediate responsibility of each of us, wherever and however we are standing, in whatever arena we choose.
We have too often been expected to speak
all things to all people and speak everyone else's position
but our own.
all things to all people and speak everyone else's position
but our own.