Quote

My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without the restriction of externally imposed definition.

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
Power
Forth
Selves
Back
Parts
Imposed
Without
Available
Freely
Externally
Self
Flow
Sources
Integrate
Different
Source
Concentration
Integrating
Particular
Allowing
Fullest
Living
Definition
Restriction
Energy
Definitions
Openly

More quotes by Audre Lorde

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In the recognition of loving lies the answer to despair.
Audre Lorde
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pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.
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If you do not learn to hate you will never be lonely enough to love easily nor will you always be brave, although it does not grow any easier. Do not pretend to convenient beliefs, even when they are righteous you will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
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The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot.
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I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.
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There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
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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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If our history has taught us anything, it is that action for change directed against the external conditions of our oppressions is not enough.
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We cannot settle for the pretenses of connection, or for the parodies of self-love.
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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.
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We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.
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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?
Audre Lorde
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In discussions around the hiring and firing of Black faculty at universities, the charge is frequently heard that Black women are more easily hired than are Black men.
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There are lesbians, God knows... if you came up through lesbian circles in the forties and fifties in New York... who were not feminist and would not call themselves feminists.
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Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.
Audre Lorde
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Women are powerful and dangerous.
Audre Lorde
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Art is not living. It is the use of living.
Audre Lorde
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The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
Audre Lorde
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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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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.
Audre Lorde