Quote

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

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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
Find
Grow
Loyal
Many
Grows
Oppression
Within
Leads
Distortions
Whatever
Defined
Externally
Fear
Keeps
Docile
Cannot
Accept
Facets
Women
Beyond
Distortion
May
Accepting
Obedient

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But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.
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The sixties were characterized by a heady belief in instantaneous solutions.
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And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives.
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Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare.
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Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.
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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.
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I was going to die, if not sooner, then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.
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For those of us who write, it is necessary to scrutinize not only the truth of what we speak, but the truth of that language by which we speak it.
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... it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.
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What I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid?
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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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Tomorrow belongs to those of us who conceive of it as belonging to everyone who lend the best of ourselves to it, and with joy.
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