Quotes from bell hooks

They tell us paradise is our home and love our true destiny.

That huge majority of black folks who identify as Christian or as believers in other religious faiths (Islam, Buddhism, Yoruba, and so on) need to return to sacred writings about love and embrace these as guides showing us the way to lead our lives.

Patriarchal violence in the home is based on the belief that it is acceptable for a more powerful individual to control others through various forms of coercive force.

If our society had a commonly held understanding of the meaning of love, the act of loving would not be so mystifying.

The difficult road is the road of conversion, the conversion from loneliness into solitude. Instead of running way from our loneliness and trying to forget or deny it, we have to protect it and turn it into fruitful solitude.... Loneliness is painful; solitude is peaceful. - Nouwen

The term "patriarchal violence" is useful because unlike the more accepted phrase "domestic violence" it continually reminds the listener that violence in the home is connected to sexism and sexist thinking, to male domination.

The strength of our friendship was revealed by our willingness to confront openly the shift in our ties and to make necessary changes. We do not see each other as much as we once did, and we no longer call each other daily, but the positive ties that bind us remain intact.

Harold Kushner writes: "I am afraid that we may be raising a generation of young people who will grow up afraid to love, afraid to give themselves completely to another person, because they will have seen how much it hurts to take the risk of loving and have it not work out.

Working within the conventional corporate academic world where the primary goals of institutions is to sell education and produce a professional managerial class schooled in the art of obedience to authority and accepting of dominator-based hierarchy, I often felt as though I was in the dysfunctional family of my childhood where I was often in the outsider position and scapegoated, viewed as both mad and yet a threat.

The heartbeat of our alternative vision is still a fundamental and necessary truth: there can be no love when there is domination. Feminist thinking and practice emphasize the value of mutual growth and self-actualization in partnerships and in parenting. This vision of relationships where everyone's needs are respected, where everyone has rights, where no one need fear subordination or abuse, runs counter to everything patriarchy upholds about the structure of relationships.

The wounded heart learns self-love by first overcoming low self-esteem. Nathaniel Branden's lengthy wort Six Pillars of Self-Esteem highlights important dimensions of self-esteem, The practice of living consciously, self -acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully and the practice of personal integrity.

Had all feminist thinkers expressed outrage at patriarchal violence perpetrated by women, placing it on an equal footing with male violence against women, it would have been and will be harder for the public to dismiss attention given patriarchal violence by seeing it as an and-male agenda.

He tells her that it is not that he does not want her to be a girlfriend but that he can see that she is not interested. She tells him that she cannot be interested when it seems that she is only a way for him to announce his own rebellion.

when you say I would die for you to those you love, the truth of those words may be not that you give your physical life but that you are willing to die to the past and be born again in the present where you can live fully and freely - where you can give us the love we need.

The wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood on that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling we reinforce the notion that lies are better.

Although the contemporary feminist movement was initially motivated by the sincere desire of women to eliminate sexist oppression, it takes place within the framework of a larger, more powerful cultural system that encourages women and men to place the fulfillment of indiivdual aspirations above their desire for collective change.

it is equally essential that we address without fear those who exploit, oppress, and dominate us. If women remain unable to speak to and about men in a feminist voice then our challenge to male domination on other fronts is seriously undermined.

Clothes do not interest her. They hang on her body as if they are there only because there is no place else for them to go, like men on street corners, like children on the school playground on weekends.

Creating domestic bliss is especially useful for individuals living alone who are just learning to be self-loving. When we intentionally strive to make our homes places where we are ready to give and receive love, every object we place there enhances our well-being.

The End of Manhood, Stoltenberg continually emphasizes that men can honor their own selfhood only through loving justice. He asserts: "Justice between people is perhaps the most important connection

Affection is only one ingredient of love. To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.

Everyone needs to be in touch with the needs of their spirit. This connectedness calls us to spiritual awakening - to love. In the biblical book of John, a passage reminds us that 'anyone who does not know love is still in death.

Imagine how different our lives would be if all the individuals who claim to be Christians, or who claim to be religious, were setting an example for everyone by being loving.

the possession of a term does not bring a process or a practice into being; concurrently one may practice theorizing without ever knowing/possessing the term.