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Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde Quotes

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Famous Audre Lorde Quotes

“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. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are, until the poem, nameless and formless-about to be birthed, but already felt.”

GivingIdeasLightFormNamesFeltQualityOur LivesMagicProductsDirectPursueIlluminationNamelessScrutinize
Book:Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
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“Advocating the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reformism. it is a total denial of the creative function of difference in our lives. Difference must be not merely toleration, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic. Only then does the necessity for interdependency become unthreatening. Only within the interdependency of different strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage and sustenance to act where there are no charters”

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Author:Audre Lorde
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“To face the realities of our lives is not a reason for despair-despair is a tool of your enemies. Facing the realities of our lives gives us motivation for action. For you are not powerless... You know why the hard questions must be asked. It is not altruism, it is self-preservation-survival.”

KnowsGivingSelfHardReasonRealityActionFacesLife IsMotivationEnemyOur LivesDespairSurvivalToolsAltruismPreservationPowerlessSelf PreservationHard Questions
Author:Audre Lorde
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“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”

MayRealFacesPoliticalChoicesGamesHouseDifferencesOur LivesConditionsMastersBeatsRacismToolsTerrorGenuineUrgesHomophobiaLoathingOur ChoicesPlace And Time
Author:Audre Lorde
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“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.”

GivingFeelingsWishEasyDestinyOur LivesDemandCapacityExcellenceGuidesLuxuryOur SocietyMediocrityGiving In
Book:Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
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“Once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives. . . .”

KnowsFeelsJoyTermExistenceOur LivesDemandCapableAspectHonestlyPursuitEmpoweringRelativeLensesEroticEvaluateKinkyScrutinize
Author:Audre Lorde
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