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It is axiomatic that if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others-for their use and to our detriment.
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
Detriment
Define
Defined
Use
Others
Axiomatic
More quotes by Audre Lorde
You will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
Audre Lorde
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
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
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
Without community, there is no liberation.
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Well, I do not want to be tolerated, nor misnamed. I want to be recognized.
Audre Lorde
The absence of any consideration of lesbian consciousness or the consciousness of third world women leaves a serious gap within this conference. . . .
Audre Lorde
The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never allow us to bring about genuine change.
Audre Lorde
Sometimes we drug ourselves with dreams of new ideasl The head will save us. The brain alone will set us free. But there are no new ideas waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves--along with the renewed courage to try them out.
Audre Lorde
Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.
Audre Lorde
Even the smallest victory is never to be taken for granted. Each victory must be applauded.
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The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.
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Out of my flesh that hungers and my mouth that knows comes the shape I am seeking for reason.
Audre Lorde
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.
Audre Lorde
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
Art is not living. It is the use of living.
Audre Lorde
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.
Audre Lorde
The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation.
Audre Lorde
I am a Black Lesbian Feminist Warrior Poet Mother, stronger for all my identities, and I am indivisible.
Audre Lorde
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