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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.

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
Enough
External
Oppression
Conditions
Taught
History
Action
Change
Oppressions
Anything
Directed

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I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.
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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.
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I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior.
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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.
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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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I remember how being young and black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell.
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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.
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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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To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society
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When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
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Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.
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Somedays, if bitterness were a whetstone, I could be sharp as grief.
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Those of us forged in the crucibles of difference know that survival is not an academic skill.
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We are powerful because we have survived
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I learned to read from Mrs. Augusta Baker, the children's librarian. ... If that was the only good deed that lady ever did in her life, may she rest in peace. Because that deed saved my life, if not sooner, then later, when sometimes the only thing I had to hold on to was knowing I could read.
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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.
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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.
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The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.
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You are the one that you are looking for.
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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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