"When we live outside ourselves, and by that I mean on external directives only rather than from our internal knowledge and needs, when we live away from those erotic guides from within ourselves, then our lives are limited by external and alien forms, and we conform to the needs of a structure that is not based on human need, let alone an individual’s. But when we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense. For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society. Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Memoirists from the United StatesPolitical authors from the United StatesWomen academics from the United States20th-century poets from the United StatesNovelists from New York City
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 58
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Audre_Lorde
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Audre Lorde
Audre Geraldine Lorde (18 February 1934 – 17 November 1992) was a black writer, feminist, womanist, lesbian, and civil rights activist. Her poems and prose largely deal with issues related to civil rights, feminism, and the exploration of black female identity.
199 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Audre Lorde →
Related Quotes
"I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is any one of you."
"When I speak of the erotic, then I speak of it as an assertion of the life force of women; of that creative energy em…"
"I stared at this earnest young black man for a moment. Suddenly my hair became very political. Waves of horror washed…"
"Feminism must be on the cutting edge of real social change if it is to survive as a movement in any particular country."
"We are jointly responsible for the care and raising of the young, since that they be raised is a function, ultimately…"
"Overextending myself is not stretching myself. I had to accept how difficult it is to monitor the difference. Necessa…"
"Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever / Only, nothing is eternal."
"I have always wanted to be both man and woman, to incorporate the strongest and richest parts of my mother and father…"
"Being women together was not enough. We were different. Being gay-girls together was not enough. We were different. B…"
"I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own."