Sometimes we drug ourselves with dreams of new ideasl The head will save us. The brain alone will set us free. But there are no new ideas waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves--along with the renewed courage to try them out.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that true creativity comes from within and is built upon past ideas rather than waiting for new inspirations to appear.
Audre Lorde's quote suggests that as individuals, particularly women, we often seek new ideas to drive us forward, but in reality, our power lies in rediscovering and reinterpreting old concepts. It underscores the importance of self-innovation and courage to experiment with these ideas, highlighting that our liberation comes not from external sources but from the courage to utilize our inner knowledge and experiences.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a women's empowerment seminar to inspire creativity.
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.
Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it.
Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late.
I'm attracted to subjects who overcome tremendous suffering and learn to cope emotionally with it
If you call a thing bad you do little, if you call a thing good you do much
Barking dogs may occasionally bite, but laughing men hardly ever shoot!
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
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