Quotes by Audre Lorde

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.

“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…Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned; we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid.”

Pain is important; how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.

The true focus of revolutionary change is never the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within us. ~ Audre Lorde

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.

The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house

"I have found that people who need but do not want are far more difficult to front than people who want without needing,because the latter will take but sometimes give back,whereas the former simply absorb constantly while always looking away or pushing against and taking at the same time.And that is a wasting of substance through lack of acknowledgement of both our energies,and waste is the worst.I know this because I have done them both."

Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.  They are chaotic, sometimes painful, sometimes contradictory, but they come from deep within us.  And we must key into those feelings... This is how new visions begin. 

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences.  Of what had I ever been afraid?  To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death.  But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end.  Death, on the other hand, is the final silence.  And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else's words.  And I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into perspective gave me great strength.