If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is discounted as a luxury, then we give up the core -- the fountain -- of our power, our womanness; we give up the future of our worlds. (From "Poetry is Not a Luxury")
Interpretation
Dreaming is essential for empowerment and the future, and dismissing it undermines our essence.
In this quote, Audre Lorde emphasizes the vital role that dreams and aspirations play in energizing and empowering individuals, particularly women. She argues that when society views the act of dreaming as a mere luxury, it undermines the foundational strength and potential that dreams provide, ultimately jeopardizing the future and vitality of communities.
In practice
This quote can inspire a women's empowerment workshop.
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.
Originality is being different from oneself, not others.
Explanations are such cheap poetry.
How can you take seriously someone who likes to believe something because he finds it 'comforting'?
This freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society, setting us apart. Like the right of assembly and the right of association, it often makes all other rights meaningful-knowing, studying, arguing, exploring, conversing, observing and even thinking. Once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer, just as when curfew or home detention is placed on a person.
A house built on granite and strong foundations, not even the onslaught of pouring rain, gushing torrents and strong winds will be able to pull down. Some people have written the story of my life representing as truth what in fact derives from ignorance, error or envy; but they cannot shake the truth from its place, even if they attempt to make others believe it.
I'll tell you what it is... just why 'Wonder Woman' worked. Or 'Bionic Woman,' or any of those, really. It was because it wasn't about brawn... it was about brains. And yes, she happened to be beautiful, she happened to be kind of extraordinary in some way, but she wasn't a guy.
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