Quote

... it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.

Audre Lorde

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Silence
Differences
Difference

More quotes by Audre Lorde

Image
I soon discovered that if you keep your mouth shut, people are apt to believe you know everything, and they begin to feel freer and freer to tell you anything, anxious to show that they know something, too.
Audre Lorde
Image
Your silence will not protect you.
Audre Lorde
Image
As we come to know, accept, and explore our feelings, they will become sanctuaries and fortresses and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas-the house of difference so necessary to change and the conceptualization of any meaningful action.
Audre Lorde
Image
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
Image
Art is not living. It is the use of living.
Audre Lorde
Image
If I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it. That's the beginning of social protest.
Audre Lorde
Image
So it is better to speak, remembering we were never meant to survive.
Audre Lorde
Image
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.
Audre Lorde
Image
The fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our own oppression as women.
Audre Lorde
Image
We are all more blind to what we have than to what we have not.
Audre Lorde
Image
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
Image
The strongest lesson I can teach my son is the same lesson I teach my daughter: how to be who he wishes to be for himself.
Audre Lorde
Image
Without community, there is no liberation.
Audre Lorde
Image
Guilt is not a response to anger it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action.
Audre Lorde
Image
Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak.
Audre Lorde
Image
We must wake up knowing we have work to do and go to bed knowing we've done it.
Audre Lorde
Image
Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.
Audre Lorde
Image
Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.
Audre Lorde
Image
I train myself for triumph by knowing it is mine no matter what.
Audre Lorde
Image
Some words live in my throat breeding like adders. Others know sun seeking like gypsies over my tongue to explode through my lips
Audre Lorde