Quotes from bell hooks

We can never go back. I know that now. We can go forward .We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go of grief about the love we lost long ago...

loving practice is not aimed at simply giving an individual greater life satisfaction; it is extolled as the primary way we end domination and oppression.

Erich Fromm, he defines love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." Explaining further, he continues: "Love is as love does. Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.

In these books male inability and/or refusal to honestly express feelings is often talked about as a positive masculine virtue women should learn to accept rather than a learned habit of behavior that creates emotional isolation and alienation.

The unhappiness of men in relationships, the grief men feel about the failure of love, often goes unnoticed in our society precisely because the patriarchal culture really does not care if men are unhappy.

Consumer culture in particular encourages lies. Advertising is one of the cultural mediums that has most sanctioned lying. Keeping people in a constant state of lack, in perpetual desire, strengthens the marketplace economy. Lovelessness is a boon to consumerism.

To practice the art of loving we have first to choose love—admit to ourselves that we want to know love and be loving even if we do not know what that means.

Sadly, love will not prevail in any situation where one party, either female or male, wants to maintain control.

When the politics of greed become a cultural norm, all acts of charity are wrongly seen as suspect and are represented as a gesture of the weak.

Men theorize about love, but women are more often love's practitioners.

Inherited wealth and/or substantial material resources are rarely talked about in the mass media because those who receive it do not wish to validate the idea that money received that is not a reward for hard work is beneficial.

When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery—that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are. . . . This kind of unmasking—speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges—is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply. —JOHN WELWOOD

The dismantling of consciousness-raising groups all but erased the notion that one had to learn about feminism and make an informed choice about embracing feminist politics to become a feminist advocate.

She wanted me to bear witness, to hear again both the naming of her pain and the power that emerged when she felt the hurt go away.

Feminist scholarship has documented that the positive benefits masses of women have gained by entering the workforce have more to do with increased self-esteem and positive participation in community. No matter her class the woman who stayed at home working as a housewife was often isolated, lonely, and depressed.

Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love's path is communication.

When parents tart out disciplining children by using punishment, this becomes the pattern children respond to. Loving parents work hard to discipline without punishment. This does not mean that they never punish, only that when they do punish, they choose punishments like timeouts or taking away of privileges. They focus on teaching children how to be self-disciplining and how to take responsibility for their actions.

we yearn for love—that we seek it—even when we lack hope that it really can be found.

For how does one overthrow, change, or even challenge a system that you have been taught to admire, to love, to believe in?

To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships.

Effectively imitating the model of AA meetings, feminist consciousness-raising groups will take place in communities

Feminism has been used as a psychological tool to make women think that work they might otherwise see as boring, tedious, and time consuming is liberating. For whether feminism exists or not, women must work.

To know compassion fully is to engage in a process of forgiveness and recognition that enables us to release all the baggage we carry that serves as a barrier to healing.

Black men in America have rarely romanticized labor, largely because they have for the most part performed less desirable tasks. They knew that performing jobs society deemed menial with bosses and supervisors harassing and persecuting them was not fulfilling.