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

• I am on the cusp of change and the curve is shifting fast.

  Audre Lorde

  Change, Curves, Shifting

  Audre Lorde (2017). “A Burst of Light: And Other Essays”, p.120, Courier Dover Publications

  9 Copy quote

• Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.

  Audre Lorde

  Differences, People, Rejection

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

  88 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

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

  Audre Lorde

  Ideas, Black History, Way

  19 Copy quote

• ... poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.

  Audre Lorde

  Dream, Names, Ideas

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.37, Crossing Press

  29 Copy quote

• Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference - those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older - know that survival is not an academic skill...For the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house. They will never allow us to bring about genuine change.

  Audre Lorde

  Skills, Circles, Differences

  76 Copy quote

• I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.

  Audre Lorde

  Believe, Caring, Self

  58 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

• The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.

  Audre Lorde

  Bridges, Differences, Broken

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

  30 Copy quote

• In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change.

  Audre Lorde

  Order, Energy, Culture

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.53, Crossing Press

  8 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

• 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

• ... it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.

  Audre Lorde

  Differences, Silence

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

  26 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

• 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 have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigated pain. It is important to share how I know survival is survival and not just a walk throught the rain.

  Audre Lorde

  Pain, Rain, Survival

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.89, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  39 Copy quote

• Anger is loaded with information and energy.

  Audre Lorde

  Anger, Energy, Information

  "The left needs to take a leaf out of Jesus' book - and get angry" by Steven W Thrasher, www.theguardian.com. February 20, 2017.

  12 Copy quote

• Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever.

  Audre Lorde

  I Love You, Inspiring, Valentines Day

  Audre Lorde (2000). “The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde”, p.64, W. W. Norton & Company

  23 Copy quote

• For each of us as women, there is a dark place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises, beautiful and tough as chestnut stanchions against our nightmare of weakness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling

  Audre Lorde

  Beautiful, Creativity, Dark

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.36, Crossing Press

  20 Copy quote

• How much of this truth can I bear to see and still live unblinded? How much of this pain can I use?

  Audre Lorde

  Pain, Use, Bears

  Audre Lorde (1990). “Need: A Chorale for Black Women Voices : Pin”, Kitchen Table/Women of Color Press

  12 Copy quote

• Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.

  Audre Lorde

  Pain, Important, Deals

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.16, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  16 Copy quote

• There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

  Audre Lorde

  Mother, Teacher, Keys

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.31, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  24 Copy quote

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