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It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand.

Audre Lorde

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Audre Lorde
Age: 58 †
Born: 1934
Born: February 18
Died: 1992
Died: November 17
Essayist
Feminist
Librarian
Novelist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Audre Geraldine Lorde
Hands
Cherish
Doe
Symbols
Substance
Lies
Close
Pay
Hand
Lying

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The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot.
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Raising Black children-female and male-in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy. If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not survive.
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The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
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If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.
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The absence of any consideration of lesbian consciousness or the consciousness of third world women leaves a serious gap within this conference. . . .
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Art is not living. It is the use of living. The artist has the ability to take the living and use it in a certain way and produce art.
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I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.
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. . . 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.
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From my membership in all of these groups I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sizes and colors and sexualities and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression.
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Your silence will not protect you.
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... it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.
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To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society
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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.
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I am on the cusp of change and the curve is shifting fast.
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It's a struggle but that's why we exist, so that another generation of Lesbians of color will not have to invent themselves, or their history, all over again.
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You will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
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What I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid?
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What is there possibly left for us to be afraid of, after we have dealt face to face with death and not embraced it? Once I accept the existence of dying as a life process, who can ever have power over me again?
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Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare.
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Our visions begin with our desires.
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