Audre Lorde Quotes

Quotes about:

• It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

  Audre Lorde

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Equality

  255 Copy quote
• 

  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 Lorde

  Strong Women, Honesty, Silence

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

  217 Copy quote

• There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.

  Audre Lorde

  Struggle, Issues, Feminism

  220 Copy quote

• Tomorrow belongs to those of us who conceive of it as belonging to everyone; who lend the best of ourselves to it, and with joy.

  Audre Lorde

  Future, Joy, Tomorrow

  Audre Lorde (2017). “A Burst of Light: And Other Essays”, p.96, Courier Dover Publications

  161 Copy quote

• Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.

  Audre Lorde

  Caring, Compassion, Self

  Audre Lorde (2017). “A Burst of Light: And Other Essays”, p.130, Courier Dover Publications

  216 Copy quote

• You cannot use someone else's fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.

  Audre Lorde

  Believe, Fire, Order

  18 Copy quote

• We are all in the process of becoming.

  Audre Lorde

  Graduation, Becoming, Process

  27 Copy quote

• The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations that we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us.

  Audre Lorde

  Focus, Pieces, Revolutionary

  73 Copy quote

• 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 Lorde

  Inspirational, Strength, Success

  "The Cancer Journals". Book by Audre Lorde, 1980.

  219 Copy quote

• I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.

  Audre Lorde

  Feminist, Fearless, Different

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.132, Crossing Press

  181 Copy quote

• 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 Lorde

  Women, Responsibility, Gay

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.115, Crossing Press

  162 Copy quote

• Without community, there is no liberation.

  Audre Lorde

  Change, Community, Collaboration

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.112, Crossing Press

  42 Copy quote

• It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those other identified as outside the structures, in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make the strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

  Audre Lorde

  Order, Differences, House

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.112, Crossing Press

  160 Copy quote

• Divide and conquer must become define and empower.

  Audre Lorde

  Empowering, Conquer, Divide And Conquer

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.112, Crossing Press

  120 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

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Love You, Creativity, Missing

  184 Copy quote

• If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.

  Audre Lorde

  Inspiring, Being Yourself, People

  185 Copy quote

• 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 Lorde

  Fear, Women, Writing

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.90, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  40 Copy quote

• If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is discounted as a luxury, then we give up the core -- the fountain -- of our power, our womanness; we give up the future of our worlds. (From "Poetry is Not a Luxury")

  Audre Lorde

  Dream, Giving Up, Moving

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.39, Crossing Press

  3 Copy quote

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

  Audre Lorde

  Ideas, Black History, Way

  16 Copy quote

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

  Audre Lorde

  Peace, Power, House

  Title of essay (1979)

  56 Copy quote

• You are the one that you are looking for.

  Audre Lorde

  Healing, Lourdes

  34 Copy quote

• ‎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

  Love, Inspiring, Happiness

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.92, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  69 Copy quote

• I am still learning - how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed.

  Audre Lorde

  Perseverance, Believe, Self

  23 Copy quote

• Oppression is as American as apple pie.

  Audre Lorde

  Apples, Pie, Apple Pie

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.114, Crossing Press

  85 Copy quote

Page 1 of 11

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin