Audre Lorde Quotes: Empowering Words That Inspire
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. – Audre Lorde
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. – Audre Lorde
Your silence will not protect you. – Audre Lorde
Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now. – Audre Lorde
If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive. – Audre Lorde
Revolution is not a one-time event. – Audre Lorde
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
We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. – Audre Lorde
If I didn’t think, I’d be much happier. – Audre Lorde
Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge. – Audre Lorde
The failure of academic feminists to recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the first patriarchal lesson. – Audre Lorde
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. – Audre Lorde
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing. – Audre Lorde
I am my best work – a series of road maps, reports, recipes, doodles, and prayers from the front lines. – Audre Lorde
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. – Audre Lorde
Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it’s personal. And the world won’t end. – Audre Lorde
I am a black feminist. I mean I recognize that my power as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable. – Audre Lorde
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
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt. – Audre Lorde
The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us, and which knows only the oppressors’ tactics, the oppressors’ relationships. – Audre Lorde
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. – Audre Lorde
Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. – Audre Lorde
The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot. – Audre Lorde
There is something within me that knows when I’m on target, that knows when I’m in my place. And when I’m close to that line, my tears flow. – Audre Lorde
If what I say resonates with you, it is merely because we are both branches on the same tree. – Audre Lorde
Everything I write is important to me; I really am compelled to write. – Audre Lorde
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. – Audre Lorde
I am defined as other in every group I’m part of. – Audre Lorde
The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot. – Audre Lorde
I am a black feminist, and I recognize that my power and my primary oppressions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable. – Audre Lorde
The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. – Audre Lorde
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. – Audre Lorde
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
The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. – Audre Lorde
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
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. I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my noseholeseverywhere. – Audre Lorde
Black feminism is not white feminism in blackface. – Audre Lorde
Art is not living. It is the use of living. – Audre Lorde
Each of us is here now because in one way or another we share a commitment to language and to the power of language, and to the reclaiming of that language. – Audre Lorde
Prose is the osteoporosis of letters. I am still a firm believer in the sanctity of free verse. – Audre Lorde
I give you my pain, voiceless cries pulsing against the still sky. Can you trace the contours of my soul, my desires, my anguish? – Audre Lorde
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
To acknowledge our privilege is the first step to making a difference. – Audre Lorde
We have within reach, now, the attainment of almost every dream of mankind. – Audre Lorde
The only thing that is constant is change. – Audre Lorde
And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others. – Audre Lorde
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
I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and to share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigated pain. – Audre Lorde
The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. – Audre Lorde
Our silence will not protect us. – Audre Lorde