Audre Lorde Quotes

• Part of the lesbian consciousness is an absolute recognition of the erotic within our lives and, taking that a step further, dealing with the erotic not only in s*xual terms.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Lives, Within

• The failure of academic feminists to recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the first patriarchal lesson. In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Failure

  Tags in Strength, World

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

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Ideas, Making, Felt

• The sixties were characterized by a heady belief in instantaneous solutions.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Belief

  Tags in Solutions, Characterized

• When I use my strength in the service of my vision it makes no difference whether or not I am afraid.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Vision

  Tags in Strength, Services

• When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Culture, Color, Present

• 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

  Topics in Love

  Tags in Women, Black, Study

• You know how fighting fish do it? They blow bubbles and in each one of those bubbles is an egg and they float the egg up to the surface. They keep this whole heavy nest of eggs floating, and they’re constantly repairing it. It’s as if they live in both elements.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Live, Fighting, Eggs, Keep, Constantly

• Your silence will not protect you.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Silence, Protect

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Believe, Misunderstood

• Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Racism

  Tags in Literary

• But the question is a matter of the survival and the teaching. That’s what our work comes down to. No matter where we key into it, it’s the same work, just different pieces of ourselves doing it.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Survival, Key, Teaching

• But, on the other hand, I get bored with racism too and recognize that there are still many things to be said about a Black person and a White person loving each other in a racist society.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Bored

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Silence

• 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

  Topics in Friendship, Joy

  Tags in Understanding

• 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

  Topics in Emotion, Joy, Life, Love

  Tags in Feeling
• 

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

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Believe, Caring, Myself

• Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Fear, Life

  Tags in Change/Growth, Poetry

• The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot.

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Education

  Tags in Learning

• What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman’s face? What woman’s terms of oppression have become precious and necessary to her as a ticket into the fold of the righteous, away from the cold winds of self-scrutiny?

  Audre Lorde

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Empathy, Injustice, Women

Audre Lorde (50)

Birth:	18th February, 1934
Death:	17th November, 1992
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Activist, Essayist, Librarian, Novelist, Poet, Teacher

About

Audre Lorde was born in New York City. She was a Caribbean-American writer, radical feminist, womanist, lesbian, and civil rights activist. She wrote her first poem when she was in eighth grade. On her return to New York, she attended college, worked as a librarian, continued writing and became an active participant in the gay culture of Greenwich Village. She furthered her education at Columbia University, earning a master's degree in library science in 1961.

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Today's Anniversary - 23rd April

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