Gloria Jean Watkins, an American author and feminist, known by her author name bell hooks, is no more with us.
She gave up the ghost on Wednesday, December 15, 2021, after battling kidney failure. She was 69.
Below, we share with you the top 10 inspiring quotes by bell hooks, credit to Good Reads:
1. bell hooks quote about feminism
“Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love. Often in their adult relationships these men act out again and again to test their partner’s love. While the rejected adolescent boy imagines that he can no longer receive his mother’s love because he is not worthy, as a grown man he may act out in ways that are unworthy and yet demand of the woman in his life that she offer him unconditional love. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.”
2. bell hooks quote about love
“When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment.”
From: All About Love: New Visions
3. bell hooks quote about love and commitment
“Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. To know love we have to invest time and commitment…’dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love — which is to transform us.’ Many people want love to function like a drug, giving them an immediate and sustained high. They want to do nothing, just passively receive the good feeling.”
4. bell hooks quote about feminism and power
“If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.”
From: Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
5. bell hooks quote about taking using others all in the name of love
“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.”
6. bell hooks quote about feminism and resistance
“I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance.”
7. bell hooks quote about the endurance of cruelty in relationships
“All too often women believe it is a sign of commitment, an expression of love, to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and forget. In actuality, when we love rightly we know that the healthy, loving response to cruelty and abuse is putting ourselves out of harm’s way.”
From: All About Love: New Visions
8. bell hooks quote about forgiveness and compassion
“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?”
9. bell hooks quote what makes love
“Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.”
From: Communion: The Female Search for Love
10. bell hooks quote about relationships
“To return to love, to get the love we always wanted but never had, to have the love we want but are not prepared to give, we seek romantic relationships. We believe these relationships, more than any other, will rescue and redeem us. True love does have the power to redeem but only if we are ready for redemption. Love saves us only if we want to be saved.”
From: All About Love: New Visions
