Audre Lorde Quotes

Political evils must be sorely felt before they can be removed.

When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.

People and systems count on our silence to keep us exactly where we are.... in a world that wants us to whisper, I choose to yell.

I don't want to be a dissident. But in the same time, I don't want to go back home and be silent again.

I'm challenging the powers that be.

Change always follows the same pattern. If you come up with something new they try and put you off.If that doesn't work they call you stark raving bonkers.If that doesn't work they lock you up like the suffragettes.Then, after a pause, the change happensand you can't find anyone that doesn't claim to have been fighting for it with you.

I grew up in the southern United States in a city which at that time during the late '40's and early '50's was the most segregated city in the country, and in a sense learning how to oppose the status quo was a question of survival.

Power is never so overwhelming that there's no room for resistance.

The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.

I love revolutionaries who have the courage to stand up against the status quo. They're always misunderstood, but they're the ones who are standing up for human rights.

Protest and anger practically always derives from hope, and the shouting out against injustice is always in the hope of those injustices being somewhat corrected and a little more justice established.

You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can't jail the Revolution.

We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

Our war cries opened the deaf ears of the almighty government and its accomplices.

People have long assumed that violence is necessary for political change. Rulers never cede power voluntarily, the argument goes, so progressives have no choice but to contemplate the use of force to bring about a better world, mindful of the trade-off between a small amount of violence now and acceptance of an unjust status quo indefinitely.

There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.

But you know, the system almost destroyed itself while it was goin' on trying to destroy us.

And the spirit of revolution will not die while the hearts of these workers continue to beat.

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.

I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.

I refuse to be silenced.

Writing is powerful. Whether it's a little girl hiding from the Nazis in an attic, or Amnesty International writing letters on behalf of political prisoners, the power of telling stories is usually what causes change.

I don't think the only place to fight for freedom is in the halls of Congress.

Without alienation, there can be no politics.

When there is a huge force pressing down on freedoms, sub-cultures with more creativity and power are likely to form.