Quote

Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge. They are chaotic, sometimes painful, sometimes contradictory, but they come from deep within us. And we must key into those feelings... This is how new visions begin.

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
Within
Paths
Knowledge
Genuine
Feelings
Painful
Come
Keys
Sometimes
Begin
Must
Deep
Visions
Vision
Chaotic
Path
Contradictory

More quotes by Audre Lorde

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So it is better to speak, remembering we were never meant to survive.
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How a diamond comes into a knot of flame How a sound comes into a word, coloured By who pays what for speaking. Some words are open. Love is a word another kind of open — As a diamond comes into a knot of flame I am black because I come from the earth's inside. Take my word for jewel in your open light.
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There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
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You'd better name yourself, because, if you don't others will do it for you.
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Guilt is not a response to anger it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action.
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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.
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Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.
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I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.
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In the recognition of loving lies the answer to despair.
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Say what you have to say now! Don't wait until you're sending blips from the other side.
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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.
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I am on the cusp of change and the curve is shifting fast.
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When you are a member of an out-group, and you challenge others with whom you share this outsider position to examine some aspect of their lives that distorts differences between you, then there can be a great deal of pain.
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Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.
Audre Lorde
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I train myself for triumph by knowing it is mine no matter what.
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I stand here as a black lesbian feminist, having been invited to comment within the only panel at this conference where the input of black feminists and lesbians is represented. What this says about the vision of this conference is sad, in a country where racism, sexism and homophobia are inseparable. . . .
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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
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The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
Audre Lorde
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Hatred is a death wish for the hated, not a life wish for anything else.
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Tell them about how you're never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there's always that one little piece inside you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don't speak it out one day it will just up and punch you in the mouth from the inside.
Audre Lorde