Audre Lorde Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• For we have built into all of us, old blueprints of expectation and response, old structures of oppression and these must be altered at the same time that we alter the living condition which are the result of those structures. For the master's tool will never dismantle the master's house.

  Audre Lorde

  Expectations, House, Tools

  65 Copy quote

• Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.

  Audre Lorde

  Life, Reality, Done

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.72, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  32 Copy quote

• The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

  Audre Lorde

  Peace, Power, House

  Title of essay (1979)

  57 Copy quote

• Your silence will not protect you.

  Audre Lorde

  Inspiring, Healing, Commitment

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.10, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  37 Copy quote

• There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.

  Audre Lorde

  Ideas, Black History, Way

  19 Copy quote

• It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.

  Audre Lorde

  Destiny, Luxury, Giving

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.54, Crossing Press

  19 Copy quote

• For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

  Audre Lorde

  Luxury, Silence, Waiting

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.44, Crossing Press

  30 Copy quote

• African tradition deals with life as an experience to be lived. In many respects, it is much like the Eastern philosophies in that we see ourselves as a part of a life force; we are joined, for instance, to the air, to the earth. We are part of the whole-life process. We live in accordance with, in a kind of correspondence with the rest of the world as a whole. And therefore living becomes an experience, rather than a problem, no matter how bad or how painful it may be.

  Audre Lorde

  Philosophy, Oneness, Air

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.96, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  48 Copy quote

• 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.

  Audre Lorde

  Differences, Growth, Progress

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.86, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  24 Copy quote

• Even the smallest victory is never to be taken for granted. Each victory must be applauded.

  Audre Lorde

  Gratitude, Taken, Victory

  Audre Lorde (2017). “A Burst of Light: and Other Essays”, p.115, Courier Dover Publications

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Long, People, Want

  Audre Lorde (2017). “A Burst of Light: and Other Essays”, p.71, Courier Dover Publications

  29 Copy quote

• Well, I do not want to be tolerated, nor misnamed. I want to be recognized.

  Audre Lorde

  Want

  "A Burst of Light: And Other Essays".

  27 Copy quote

• From my membership in all of these groups I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sizes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression.

  Audre Lorde

  Children, Color, Differences

  23 Copy quote

• Our visions begin with our desires.

  Audre Lorde

  Inspirational, Vision, Desire

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.91, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  32 Copy quote

• ...my experience with people who tried to label me was that they usually did it to either dismiss me or use me.

  Audre Lorde

  People, Labels, Use

  38 Copy quote

• What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence.

  Audre Lorde

  Fear, Silence, Needs

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.41, Crossing Press

  22 Copy quote

• June Jordan once said something which is just wonderful. I'm paraphrasing her-that her function as a poet was to make revolution irresistible. Well o.k. that is the function of us all, as creative artists, to make the truth, as we see it irresistible.

  Audre Lorde

  Artist, June, Creative

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.198, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  Peace, Equality, Emotional

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.56, Crossing Press

  24 Copy quote

• I am a bleak heroism of words that refuse to be buried alive with the liars.

  Audre Lorde

  Liars, Heroism, Alive

  Audre Lorde (2000). “The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde”, p.348, W. W. Norton & Company

  40 Copy quote

• I started writing because I had a need inside of me to create something that was not there

  Audre Lorde

  Writing, Needs

  23 Copy quote

• We are all more blind to what we have than to what we have not.

  Audre Lorde

  Gratitude, Blind, Dissatisfaction

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.31, Crossing Press

  18 Copy quote

• And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive

  Audre Lorde

  Hope, Morning, Fear

  Audre Lorde (1995). “The Black Unicorn: Poems”, p.25, W. W. Norton & Company

  36 Copy quote

• Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness.

  Audre Lorde

  Communication, Ignorance, Names

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.130, Crossing Press

  33 Copy quote

• We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit because what was native has been stolen from us, the love of Black women for each other.

  Audre Lorde

  Black, Literature, Study

  "Sister Outsider" by Audre Lorde, ("Eye to Eye"), 1984.

  19 Copy quote

• I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.

  Audre Lorde

  Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

  Audre Lorde (2000). “The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde”, p.73, W. W. Norton & Company

  36 Copy quote

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