Bell Hooks Quotes

 "When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against  alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other." ~ Bell Hooks

 "What we do is more important than what we say or what we say we believe." ~ Bell Hooks

 "To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality." ~ Bell Hooks

 "I celebrate teaching that enables transgressions - a movement against and beyond boundaries. It is that movement which makes education the practice of freedom." ~ Bell Hooks

 "What we cannot imagine cannot come into being." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Shaming is one of the deepest tools of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy because shame produces trauma and trauma often produces paralysis." ~ Bell Hooks

 "The rage of the oppressed is never the same as the rage of the privileged." ~ Bell Hooks

 "The practice of love is the most powerful antidote to the politics of domination." ~ Bell Hooks

 "The true teacher is within us. A good teacher is someone who can help you to go back and touch the true teacher within, because you already have the insight within you." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair." ~ Bell Hooks

 "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." ~ Bell Hooks

 "To build 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." ~ Bell Hooks

 "If we want a beloved community, we must stand for justice." ~ Bell Hooks

 "As long as women are using class or race power to dominate other women, feminist sisterhood cannot be fully realized." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Because we have learned to believe negativity is more realistic, it appears more real than any positive voice." ~ Bell Hooks

 "You are not going to destroy this imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy by creating your own version of it." ~ Bell Hooks

 "If we want a beloved community, we must stand for justice, have recognition for difference without attaching difference to privilege." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Because we have learned to believe negativity is more realistic, it appears more real than any positive voice." ~ Bell Hooks

 "To build 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." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust." ~ Bell Hooks

 "If we want a beloved community, we must stand for justice." ~ Bell Hooks

 "As long as women are using class or race power to dominate other women, feminist sisterhood cannot be fully realized." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Feminist politics aims to end domination, to free us to be who we are - to live lives where we love justice, where we can live in peace. Feminism is for everybody." ~ Bell Hooks

 "The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom." ~ Bell Hooks

 "I think our culture doesn't recognize passion, because real passion has the power to disrupt boundaries." ~ Bell Hooks

"There is light in darkness, you just have to find it." ~ Bell Hooks

 "I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Being oppressed means the absence of choices" ~ Bell Hooks

 "Most of us did not learn when we were young that our capacity to be self-loving would be shaped by the work we do and whether that work enhances our well-being." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Honesty and openness is always the foundation of insightful dialogue." ~ Bell Hooks

"Sexism has never rendered women powerless. It has either suppressed their strength or exploited it." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Commitment to truth telling lays the groundwork for the openness and honesty that is the heartbeat of love." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Only grown-ups think that the things children say come out of nowhere. We know they come from the deepest parts of ourselves." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself." ~ Bell Hooks

 "We have to constantly critique imperialist white supremacist patriarchal culture because it is normalized by mass media and rendered unproblematic." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Intersectionality allow us to focus on what is most important at a given point in time." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Love is an action, never simply a feeling." ~ Bell Hooks

 "When men and women punish each other for truth telling, we reinforce the notion that lies are better." ~ Bell Hooks

 "The challenge these days, is to be somewhere, to belong to some particular place, invest oneself in it, draw strength and courage from it, to dwell in a community." ~ Bell Hooks

 "The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control." ~ Bell Hooks

 "Since loving is about knowing, we have more meaningful love relationships when we know each other and it takes time to know each other." ~ Bell Hooks