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To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society
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
Society
Encouraged
Mediocrity
Encourage
Excellence
Beyond
More quotes by Audre Lorde
You'd better name yourself, because, if you don't others will do it for you.
Audre Lorde
Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak.
Audre Lorde
The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.
Audre Lorde
Say what you have to say now! Don't wait until you're sending blips from the other side.
Audre Lorde
We are powerful because we have survived
Audre Lorde
What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence.
Audre Lorde
So it is better to speak, remembering we were never meant to survive.
Audre Lorde
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.
Audre Lorde
Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare.
Audre Lorde
I am very, very happy for Alice Walker.
Audre Lorde
But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.
Audre Lorde
You will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
Audre Lorde
I believe one of the hardest things you can do is conquer your fears, but if you have a goal, then it's your job to open up and let it be real no matter how scary it seems.
Audre Lorde
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
Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.
Audre Lorde
There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
Audre Lorde
I would like to do another piece of fiction dealing with a number of issues: Lesbian parenting, the 1960's, and interracial relationships in the Lesbian and Gay community.
Audre Lorde
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.
Audre Lorde
In the recognition of loving lies the answer to despair.
Audre Lorde
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