And this is a grave responsibility, projected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.
Interpretation
We must take responsibility for seeking higher standards and not just accept what is easy or conventional.
In this quote, Audre Lorde emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility in striving for excellence and authenticity. She encourages individuals to look beyond societal norms and superficial safety, urging them to pursue deeper, more meaningful choices that reflect their true selves and values.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth and self-improvement.
The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.
There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
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.
Men wrongly lament the flight of time, blaming it for being too swift; they do not perceive that its passage is sufficiently long, but a good memory, which nature has given to us, causes things long past to seem present.
From here on out, there's just reality. I think that's what maturity is: a stoic response to endless reality. But then, what do I know?
I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution.
Be ruthless about protecting writing days....althoug h writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it.
My company survives because I've learned to respect the ideas of people younger than me and recognize when my wisdom is obsolete.
The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence -- these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it.
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