Audre Lorde Quotes

If it wasn't for so many brave people standing up, speaking out, and fighting for equal rights, we might not have all of the luxuries of freedom that we have today. So many unsung people fought for us to be able to live together in harmony no matter how different we are from one another.

I have a big passion about civil rights for everyone - whoever is being downtrodden at the moment, it doesn't matter: racial discrimination or sexual orientation or gender. Whatever it is, I'm there. I think I was a born civil rights activist. I can't stand the smashing of a community. It's not fair and it's not right.

Speaking out is important for me because everyone should be treated equally.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in issues of social justice, political freedom, and civil rights.

Where I come from, if you see your family and friends' civil rights being taken away, you speak up and do everything you can to keep that from happening!

We must stand together united in solidarity against the targeting, demonization, and vilification of any group of people.

Genuine supporters of Palestinians' rights are fighting for equality, justice and freedom, aims that are in diametric opposition to any form of antisemitism.

Let us not forget such words, and all they mean, as hatred, bitterness, and rancor greed, intolerance, bigotry; let us renew our faith and pledge to man, his right to be himself and free.

For all the injustices in our past and our present, we have to believe that in the free exchange of ideas, justice will prevail over injustice, tolerance over intolerance and progress over reaction.

I have defended democracy, human rights, and brotherhood between peoples. And I'll keep doing so for as long as I live.

I believe in, and will to the best of my ability fight for, equal rights and freedom of opinion for everyone, regardless of colour, religion, nationality, orientation - you know the rest.

I am known for a life spent in the struggle for freedom, and freedom includes the freedom of religion.

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

If you care about injustice, and if you care about freedom, and you care about human rights, then you care about them everywhere.

Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

Only very slowly and late have men come to realize that unless freedom is universal it is only extended privilege.

Facing sexism and racism and classism and transphobia, there are ways to choose to act in those situations, and there shouldn't be a prescriptive list of things that you have to say.

If you are for freedom and equal rights, which we hear a lot of talk about these days, then you have to include the LGBTQ community in that. And if you're not willing to put your time where your mouth is, then I don't know quite what you mean by commitment in your life.

I think it is incumbent on all human beings to oppose injustice in every form.

As straight Americans we have two choices: we can choose to sit back and enjoy our rights as we have them, or we can realize that it is actually not freedom at all when our friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues do not share these basic rights.

Until we are all free, we are none of us free.

Any kind of civil rights oppression is wrong.

In articulating all my feelings about marriage equality, I almost don't know where to begin. And perhaps that's part of the problem. Why do we have to explain ourselves when it comes to issues of fairness and equality? Why is common sense not enough?

Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin.

If we want to talk about freedom, we must mean freedom for others as well as ourselves, and we must mean freedom for everyone inside our frontiers as well as outside.