Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself. — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Sexism has never rendered women powerless. It has either suppressed their strength or exploited it. — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Young people are cynical about love. Ultimately, cynicism is the great mask of the disappointed and betrayed heart. — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust. — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Commitment to truth telling lays the groundwork for the openness and honesty that is the heartbeat of love. — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
But love is really more of an interactive process. It's about what we do not just what we feel. It's a verb,… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
The greatest movement for social justice our country has ever known is the civil rights movement and it was totally rooted in… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
I have been thinking about the notion of perfect love as being without fear, and what that means for us in a… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. No one can… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
The word "love" is most often defined as a noun, yet al the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
When angels speak of love they tell us it is only by loving that we enter an earthly paradise. They tell us… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Only love can heal the wounds of the past. However, the intensity of our woundedness often leads to a closing of the… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
If only one party in the relationship is working to create love, to create the space of emotional connection, the dominator model… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
How different things might be if, rather than saying "I think I'm in love," we were saying "I've connected with someone in… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
To return to love, to get the love we always wanted but never had, to have the love we want but are… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. To know love we have to invest time and commitment...'dreaming… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
In an ideal world we would all learn in childhood to love ourselves. We would grow, being secure in our worth and… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
When I began to think deeply about the metaphysics of love I talked with everyone around me about it. I talked to… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
“Only a revolution of values...will end male violence, and that revolution will necessarily be based on a love ethic. To create loving… — bell hooks Copy Share Image
All of us in the academy and in the culture as a whole are called to renew our minds if we are… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
“Romantic love as most people understand it in patriarchal culture makes one unaware, renders one powerless and out of control. Feminist thinkers… — bell hooks Copy Share Image
Most of us did not learn when we were young that our capacity to be self-loving would be shaped by the work… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
A generous heart is always open, always ready to receive our going and coming. In the midst of such love we need… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
“Men theorize about love, but women are more often love's practitioners. Most men feel that they receive love and therefore know what… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
My students tell me, we don't want to love! We're tired of being loving! And I say to them, if you're tired… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
“To be loving we willingly hear each other's truth and, most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Part of why I have started writing about love is feeling that our culture is forgetting what Martin Luther King taught. We… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Reviewing the literature on love I noticed how few writers, male or female, talk about the impact of patriarchy, the way in… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
as females in a patriarchal culture, we were not slaves of love; most of us were and are slaves of longing-- yearning… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Whether we learn how to love ourselves and others will depend on the presence of a loving environment. Self-love cannot flourish in… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our other efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
If you do not know what you feel, then it is difficult to choose love; it is better to fall. Then you… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
The world would be a paradise of peace and justice if global citizens shared a common definition of love which would guide… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
In general, the mass media tell us that black people are not loving, that our lives are so fraught with violence and… — bell hooks Copy Share Image
The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourself. Learning to love our female selves is… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
Right now, for many Americans, class is being foregrounded like never before because of the economic situation. It doesn't mean that race doesn't matter,… — Bell Hooks Copy Share
“Most folks believe we are hardwired biologically to long for sex but they do not believe we are hardwired to long for love. Almost… — Bell Hooks Copy Share
... we need to interrogate "reverence," for idolization can be another way one is objectified and not really taken seriously. — Bell Hooks Copy Share
The power of patriarchy has been to make maleness feared and to make men feel that it is better to be feared that to… — Bell Hooks Copy Share
“I feel enormously blessed to be a successful black woman writer in this culture, but I have found my small fame, such as it… — Bell Hooks Copy Share
In this culture, the phrase 'black woman' is not synonymous with 'tender,' or 'gentle.' It's as if those words couldn't possibly speak to the… — bell hooks Copy Share
It's interesting to look at all the aspects where everyday Americans, many of whom are not college educated, are thinking deeply now about our… — Bell Hooks Copy Share
The true teacher is within us. A good teacher is someone who can help you to go back and touch the true teacher within,… — Bell Hooks Copy Share
“Advancing the notion that there can be many "feminisms" has served the conservative and liberal political interests of women seeking status and privileged class… — bell hooks Copy Share
You must have courage to love, you have to have a profound will to do what is right to love, and it does not… — Bell Hooks Copy Share
To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients - care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open… — Bell Hooks Copy Share
“Often emphasis on identity and lifestyle is appealing because it creates a false sense that one is engaged in praxis. However, praxis within any… — bell hooks Copy Share
