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"Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness."
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"It's a terrible thing, what we did, said Francis abruptly. "I mean, this man was not Voltaire we killed. But still. It's a shame. I feel bad about it."

"Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway."

"At the same time I know that it's not really their fault, at least not completely. I did my part too. I did it on a hundred different days and in a thousand different ways, and I know it. But this makes the anger worse, not better."
Explore more 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."

"When I use my strength in the service of my vision it makes no difference whether or not I am afraid."

"You know how fighting fish do it? They blow bubbles and in each one of those bubbles is an egg and they float the egg up to the surface. They keep this whole heavy nest of eggs floating, and they're constantly repairing it. It's as if they live in both elements."

"Black women are programmed to define ourselves within this male attention and to compete with each other for it rather than to recognize and move upon our common interests."

"There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else."

"In discussions around the hiring and firing of Black faculty at universities, the charge is frequently heard that Black women are more easily hired than are Black men."

"Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men."

"Certainly there are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. But it is not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation."

"I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigated pain. It is important to share how I know survival is survival and not just a walk throught the rain."

"We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves 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."
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