We do not have to romanticize our past in order to be aware of how it seeds our present.
AUDRE LORDETomorrow belongs to those of us who conceive of it as belonging to everyone; who lend the best of ourselves to it, and with joy.
More Audre Lorde Quotes
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Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever.
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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.
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It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand.
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I am a Black, Lesbian, Feminist, Warrior, Poet, Mother – stronger for all my identities, and I am indivisible.
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Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.
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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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But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.
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There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
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Oppression is as American as apple pie.
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A choice of pains. That’s what living was all about.
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The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot.
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If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.
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Dark-bright fire lit eyes.
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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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My experience with people who tried to label me was that they usually did it to either dismiss me or use me.
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Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.
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When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.
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What I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid?
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When you reach out and touch other human beings, it doesn’t matter whether you call it therapy or teaching or poetry.
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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.
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If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they probably will not survive.
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You are the one that you are looking for.
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You cannot use someone else’s fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.
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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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Women are powerful and dangerous.
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For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.
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