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.
Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.
Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding
Some read for style, and some for argument: one has little care about the sentiment, he observes only how it is expressed; another regards not the conclusion, but is diligent to mark how it is inferred; they read for other purposes than the attainment of practical knowledge; and are no more likely to grow wise by an examination of a treatise of moral prudence, than an architect to inflame his devotion by considering attentively the proportions of a temple.
Wait with patience and love and strength. If helpers are not ready now, they will come in time. Why should we be in a hurry? The real working force of all great work is in its almost unperceived beginnings.
Reckless youth makes rueful age.
I certainly have a lot to lament, as do we all, everybody has their griefs. But the griefs we can fix, shouldn't we go around fixing them?
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.