black
grey
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When times are hard, do something. If it works, do it some more. If it does not work, do something else. But keep going.

Audre Lorde

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.
AUDRE LORDE

Black Gay Hell Loneliness Remember Truth
Divide and conquer must become define and empower.
AUDRE LORDE

Conquer Divide Empowerment Inspirational
Wherever the bird with no feet flew, she found trees with no limbs.
AUDRE LORDE

Bird Deep Fly Inspirational Tree
Out of my flesh that hungers and my mouth that knows comes the shape I am seeking for reason.
AUDRE LORDE

Flesh Hunger Mouth Reason Seek Shape
It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand.
AUDRE LORDE

Cherish Close Hands Pay Substance Symbol
Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.
AUDRE LORDE

Against Battle Cease Difficult Live Love Remember War
Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.
AUDRE LORDE

Architecture Change Dreams Future Live Poetry Vision
Oppressors always expect the oppressed to extend to them the understanding so lacking in themselves.
AUDRE LORDE

Expectation Extend Lack Oppression Understand
What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heel print upon another woman’s face?
AUDRE LORDE

Face Oppression Woman
One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.
AUDRE LORDE

Aware Pay
I have been woman for a long time beware my smile I am treacherous with old magic.
AUDRE LORDE

Beware Magic Old Smile Woman
I am still learning – how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed.
AUDRE LORDE

Acceptance Believe Joy Learning People Rejoice Service Success
Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.
AUDRE LORDE

Deal Evade Important Inspirational Pain Transcend
We must wake up knowing we have work to do and go to bed knowing we’ve done it.
AUDRE LORDE

Bed Done Motivational Satisfaction Wake Up Work
The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations that we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us.
AUDRE LORDE

Change Escape Focus Pieces Plant Revolution Seek Situation
I wish to raise a Black man who will not be destroyed by, nor settle for, those corruptions called power by the white fathers who mean his destruction as surely as they mean mine.
AUDRE LORDE

Black Black Lives Matter Corruption Destroy Father Man Power Racism

When times are hard, do something. If it works, do it some more. If it does not work, do something else. But keep going.

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When times are hard, do something. If it works, do it some more. If it does not work, do something else. But keep going.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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