bell hooks Quotes

Many spiritual teachers – in Buddhism, in Islam – have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment.

Any society based on domination supports and condones violence.

I began writing a book on love because I felt that the United States is moving away from love.

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

I think the number one thing Black women and all Black people should be paying attention to is our health.

I have always been a flirt. My mother says whe I was a child, I used to stand outside the house and just smile at everyone who walked by. Like, ‘Please take me with you!’

I think I was always obsessed with esthetics.

Why is it that many contemporary male thinkers, especially men of color, repudiate the imperialist legacy of Columbus but affirm dimensions of that legacy by their refusal to repudiate patriarchy?

Yesterday I was thinking about the whole idea of genius and creative people, and the notion that if you create some magical art, somehow that exempts you from having to pay attention to the small things.

Once you do away with the idea of people as fixed, static entities, then you see that people can change, and there is hope.

These days I wonder more and more why people are pessimistic when American history actually supports optimism.

There is no life to be found in violence. Every act of violence brings us closer to death. Whether it’s the mundane violence we do to our bodies by overeating toxic food or drink or the extreme violence of child abuse, domestic warfare, life-threatening poverty, addiction, or state terrorism.

What’s really sad is that so many young women between the ages of 16 and 25 are ignorant and they already believe that women get the same pay as men. They don’t even really understand that equality hasn’t happened with the pay force.

My idea of a delicious time is to read a book that is wonderful. But the ruling passion of my life is being a seeker after truth and the divine.

The greatest movement for social justice our country has ever known is the civil rights movement and it was totally rooted in a love ethic.

Some people act as though art that is for a mass audience is not good art, and I think this has been a very negative thing. I know that I have wanted very much to write books that are accessible to the widest audience possible.

Class is more than money. Class is also about knowledge.