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65 profound bell hooks quotes on love, justice and humanity

6 days ago 30

Bell hooks (real name Gloria Jean Watkins) is a renowned thinker, writer, and social critic who shaped intellectual conversations about race, feminism, classism, and patriarchy. The American author and educator has published multiple books and taught all around the globe. Bell hook's quotes reflect and celebrate her dedication to social growth and justice.

Key takeaways

The distinguished Professor in Residence believed that love must be rooted in justice, care, and mutual respect to be truly liberating.
As a prolific author, hooks argued against several accepted ideas regarding love, gender, race, community and the various forms of oppression.
Most notably, bell taught that feminism is the solution needed to free both genders from the ills of patriarchy.

Famous bell hooks quotes

Hooks was an African American educator and author whose writing and philosophy challenged accepted norms in society about love, race, class, and gender. Her books and teachings called for love, acceptance, and inclusivity in movements fighting feminism, equality, and injustice.

Bell hooks' quotes on love

Bell hooks viewed love as a transformative force that can heal individuals and communities. This collection offers a glimpse into her radical thoughts on the power and nature of love and trust.

When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment.
Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.
To be loving, we willingly hear the other’s truth, and most importantly, affirm the value of truth-telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.
Trust is the heartbeat of genuine love.
One of the best guides to being self-loving is giving ourselves the love we often dream about receiving from others.
Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified.
Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.
Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love.
To truly love, we must learn to mix various ingredients; care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust, and honest and open communication.
Abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love.
The word love is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.

Bell hooks' quotes on friendship

Hooks believed that friendship is a necessary space where people can experience true love, vulnerability, emotional honesty, and mutual support. Have a look at these friendship quotes as you seek deeper connections with loved ones.

Relationships are treated like Dixie cups. They are the same. They are disposable. If it does not work, drop it, throw it away, and get another.
To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds.
Friendship is the place in which a great majority of us have our first glimpse of redemptive love and a caring community.
Satisfying friendships in which we share mutual love provides a guide for behaviour in other relationships, including romantic ones.
Living by a love ethic we learn to value loyalty and a commitment to sustained bonds over material advancement.
Often we take friendships for granted even when they are the interactions where we experience mutual pleasure.
The more genuine our romantic loves the more we do not feel called upon to weaken or sever ties with friends to strengthen ties with romantic partners.
Deep, abiding friendships are the place where many women know lasting love.
Satisfying friendships in which we share mutual love provides a guide for behaviour in other relationships, including romantic ones.

Bell hooks' quotes about feminism

Bell's work on feminism emphasized that it is a mutually beneficial concept for men and women. Have a glimpse at her ideas, recognising the struggles of women and men and how to dismantle sexism and discrimination in society.

Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.
If any female feels she needs anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.
Visionary feminism is a wise and loving politics. It is rooted in the love of the male and female being, refusing to privilege one over the other.
Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin.
Feminist thinking teaches us all, especially, how to love justice and freedom in ways that foster and affirm life.
Since men are not equals in a white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal class structure, which men do women want to be equal to?
As long as women are using class or race power to dominate other women, feminist sisterhood cannot be fully realized.
Feminist thinking teaches us all, especially, how to love justice and freedom in ways that foster and affirm life.
Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression.
Boys need love. And wise and loving feminist politics can provide the only foundation to save the lives of male children. Patriarchy will not heal them. If that were so, they would all be well.

Bell hooks' quotes about patriarchy

In her work, she argued that patriarchy is a social structure that perpetuates violence and inequality. This summary of bell hooks' quotes on the subject challenges both individuals and society to stand against patriarchal domination and violence.

In patriarchal culture, males are not allowed simply to be who they are and to glory in their unique identity. Their value is always determined by what they do. In an anti-patriarchal culture, males do not have to prove their value and worth.
Ending the patriarchal domination of children, by men or women, is the only way to make the family a place where children can be safe, where they can be free, where they can know love.
Boys need healthy self-esteem. They require love. And wise and loving feminist politics can provide the only foundation to save the lives of male children.
Dismantling and changing patriarchal culture is work that men and women must do together.
The power of patriarchy has been to make maleness feared and to make men feel that it is better to be feared than to be loved.
When culture is based on a dominator model, not only will it be violent, but it will frame all relationships as power struggles.
Patriarchy denies all men the emotional life that would act as a humanizing, self-affirming force in their lives.
Patriarchy demands of men that they become and remain emotional cripples.
There seems to be a fear that if men are raised to be people of integrity, people who can love, they will be unable to be forceful and act violently if needed.
The crisis facing men is not the crisis of masculinity, it is the crisis of patriarchal masculinity. Until we make this distinction clear, men will continue to fear that any critique of patriarchy represents a threat.

In her writings on social justice, bell hooks argued that the struggle for equality must address all forms of oppression, including racism, classism, and sexism. Here is a collection of quotes that address the concepts of inequality in society.

The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want to be.
If we want a beloved community, we must stand for justice and have recognition for difference without attaching difference to privilege.
Concern for the collective good of our nation, city, or neighbour rooted in the values of love makes us all seek to nurture and protect the good.
All our silences in the face of racist assault are acts of complicity.
Without justice, there can be no love.
Privilege is not in and of itself bad; what matters is what we do with privilege.
Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.
Indeed, all the great movements for social justice in our society have strongly emphasized a love ethic.
Love, as the foundation of all social movements for self-determination, is the only way to create a world that domination and dominator thinking cannot destroy.
Greed subsumes love and compassion; living simply makes room for them.

Like other social critics, bell hooks championed the importance of community as a place for collective healing. The American author encourages people to build communities of resistance and support systems that overcome inequalities in the quotes below.

Building community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.
The love we make in a community stays with us wherever we go. With this knowledge as our guide, we make any place we go, a place where we return to love.
Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.
Finding out what connects us, revelling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community.
All too often we think of community in terms of being with folks like ourselves: the same class, same race, same ethnicity, same social standing and the like.
And we are called to choose again and again where we stand on the issue of racism at different moments in our life.
By confronting the past without shame, we are free of its hold on us.
When despair prevails we cannot create life-sustaining communities of resistance.
We can begin the process of making community wherever we are. We can begin by sharing a smile, a warm greeting, a bit of conversation, by doing a kind deed or by acknowledging kindness offered to us.
One of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone.

Bell hooks' quotes on leadership

Collectively, bell hooks life and work built a concept of good leadership. The concept expressed in the following quotes on leadership challenges accepted ideas of patriarchy, capitalism, and racism.

While communism has suffered political defeat globally, the politics of communalism continue to matter.
Any society based on domination supports and condones violence.
Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity.
For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?
True resistance begins with people confronting pain… and wanting to do something to change it.

Why is bell hooks's name written in the lowercase?

Her pen name, bell hooks, was borrowed from her maternal great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. To shift the focus towards the substance of her work rather than her identity, Gloria intentionally writes her name in lowercase.

How does bell hooks define love?

In her book, All About Love, bell hooks explores alternative definitions of love as a verb, choice, and process. She argues that love is not simply a feeling but a transformative force that requires time, effort, and commitment.

Bell hooks' quotes are thought-provoking beliefs about love, justice, feminism, and overall oppression. They challenge traditional thinking and inspire a critical reexamination of the structures of power such as class and patriarchy.

Legit.ng has recently published an article listing great Women's History Month quotes to inspire your daily life. As its name suggests, Women's History Month is a month-long celebration of female achievements that have happened throughout history.

Quotes about this monumental celebration highlight the resilience and courage of women around the world while serving as a powerful reminder of the strength they possess. Read on for inspirational words of wisdom celebrating women's achievements and contributions.

Source: Legit.ng

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