100+ Audre Lorde Quotes & Words

The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.
AUDRE LORDE

Beginning Choas Erotic Feeling Measure Sense Strong
A choice of pains. That’s what living was all about.
AUDRE LORDE

Abortion Choice Live Pain Struggle Women
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
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
One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.
AUDRE LORDE

Aware Pay
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
Oppression is as American as apple pie.
AUDRE LORDE

Apple Oppression
I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.
AUDRE LORDE

Act Believe Care Indulgence Myself Survival
Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.
AUDRE LORDE

Absolute Difference Economics Institution Necessary Outside People Profit Rejection
Our visions begin with our desires.
AUDRE LORDE

Beginning Desire Inspirational One Liner Vision
Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action.
AUDRE LORDE

Action Angry Guilty Lack Response
Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.
AUDRE LORDE

Emotion Feeling Genuine Knowledge Path
Women are powerful and dangerous.
AUDRE LORDE

Danger One Liner Powerful Women Women Empowerment
What you hear in my voice is fury, not suffering. Anger, not moral authority.
AUDRE LORDE

Authority Fury Hear Moral Suffering Voice
Some problems we share as women, some we do not.
AUDRE LORDE

Problem Share Women
I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do.
AUDRE LORDE

Decent Life Live Love Management People Sweet Want Work
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
It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand.
AUDRE LORDE

Cherish Close Hands Pay Substance Symbol
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
AUDRE LORDE

Black Lives Matter Ideas
I am bleak heroism of words that refuse to be buried alive with the liars.
AUDRE LORDE

Bury Heroism Liar Refuse
In the recognition of loving lies the answer to despair.
AUDRE LORDE

Despair Love Lying Recognize
I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigated pain. It is important to share how I know survival is survival and not just a walk throught the rain.
AUDRE LORDE

Duty Important Intense Pain Rain Speak Survival Truimph Truth
Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity.
AUDRE LORDE

Black Lives Matter Education Expectation Human People World
We are powerful because we have survived, and that is what it is all about survival and growth.
AUDRE LORDE

Growth Inspirational Powerful Survival Women Empowerment
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
The transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation .
AUDRE LORDE

Act Action Language Silence Transformation
In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.
AUDRE LORDE

Celebration Destruction Difference Growth Live Reason Recognize Work

Audre Lorde Quotes

Famous American writers