The more I use my strength in the service of my vision the less I am afraid.
Interpretation
Using one's strength for a purpose reduces fear.
This quote by Audre Lorde emphasizes that the more we dedicate our abilities and efforts towards fulfilling our personal vision or goals, the less fear we will experience. It suggests that action and commitment can alleviate apprehension, empowering us to pursue our ambitions with confidence.
In practice
In a motivational speech about pursuing one's dreams.
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.
There is a kind of strength that is almost frightening in Black women. It's as if a steel rod runs right through the head down to the feet.
Dangers by being despised grow great.
If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies, choking in his own blood upon the ground.
When whistleblowers come forward, we need to fight for them, so others will be encouraged. When they are gagged, we must be their voice. When they are hunted, we must be their shield. When they are locked away, we must free them. Giving us the truth is not a crime. This is our data, our information, our history. We must fight to own it.
The big dividing line is not and has never been between those who advocate more or less militant forms of resistance, or between mainstream and grassroots activists. The dividing line is between those who do something and those who do nothing.
I always showed myself in the face of day, asserting the liberty and independence of my country, while some others, like owls, courted concealment and were too much afraid of losing their roosts to leave them for such a cause.
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