bell hooks — Quote from All About Love
“When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment.”
All About Love (2000)
Concepts: love, escape, authenticity
Resonant Quotes
- “To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive — to ...” — Rollo May, Love and Will May's definition of love as necessarily embracing the negative directly explains the psychological mechanism behind h...
- “Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot l...” — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time Both quotes illuminate how love demands the courage to face what we fear most—hooks identifies our tendency to flee f...
- “One can give nothing whatever without giving oneself — that is to say, riskin...” — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time Baldwin's insight that love requires risking oneself directly illuminates hooks' observation about why we sever bonds...
- “The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is ...” — George Orwell, Reflections on Gandhi Orwell's vision of accepting inevitable brokenness as the price of loving individuals provides the existential counte...
- “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” — Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out Both quotes challenge the human tendency to flee difficulty, with hooks addressing relational avoidance and Woolf ass...
- “The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identic...” — Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom hooks's observation that we sever bonds rather than maintain commitment mirrors Fromm's automaton who trades authenti...
- “Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a standing in, not a falling...” — Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving Fromm's call for love as active commitment directly challenges hooks' observation about our tendency to flee relation...
- “Immature love says: I love you because I need you. Mature love says: I need y...” — Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving hooks' observation about severing bonds under pressure illuminates how immature love's neediness creates fragile rela...