20 Audre Lorde quotes that translate the strength of black feminism

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, the fear I feel becomes less and less important.

I am not free as long as any woman is captive. Even if her chains are very different from mine.

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me should be talked about, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of hurting him or being misunderstood.

Taking care of myself isn’t self-indulgence, it’s self-preservation, and that’s an act of political warfare.

Without community, there is no liberation.

I realize that if I wait until I’m no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I’ll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side.

I learned a lot by listening to people. And all I knew was that the only thing I had was honesty and openness.

Poetry wedges the language to express and establish this consciousness and revolutionary demand, the implementation of this freedom.

Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.

There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle, because we don’t live single-issue lives.

The revolution is not a one-time event.

Pain matters: how we run from it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.

I am my best work – a series of frontline scripts, reports, recipes, doodles and prayers.

If I hadn’t defined myself, I would have been crushed by other people’s fantasies of me and eaten alive.

Unless you live and love in the trenches, it’s hard to remember that the war against dehumanization is incessant.

We were created to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest desires.

We must recognize and nurture each other’s creative parts without always understanding what will be created.

If they can’t love and resist at the same time, they probably won’t survive.

The white patriarchs told us: I think, therefore I am. The black mother within each of us – the poet – whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.