Love is a verb. Not a noun. If you’ve ever sat in a coffee shop and felt that weird, hollow ache after a breakup, you’ve probably scrolled through Instagram and found a quote by bell hooks. Maybe it was the one about love being an "act of will." It sounds deep, right? But honestly, most of us are using bell hooks love quotes as wallpaper for our digital sadness without actually doing the terrifying work she was talking about.
Hooks didn't write about love to make us feel fuzzy. She wrote about it because she was tired of seeing people settle for "cathexis"—that's her fancy word for just being obsessed with someone—and calling it love.
Love is an Action, Never Simply a Feeling
Seriously. Stop thinking of love as something you "fall" into like a ditch. Hooks, in her groundbreaking book All About Love: New Visions, basically told the world to grow up. She defined love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth."
It’s a choice. You don’t just wake up and "have" love. You do love.
Think about the last time you were actually loving toward a partner when you were annoyed. It’s hard. It requires what hooks calls the "ingredients" of love: care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust. If you’re missing one, the whole recipe tastes off. Most of us are out here trying to bake a cake with just salt and wondering why it’s bitter.
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The KEYWORD Everyone Misunderstands: Self-Love
We’ve turned self-love into a multi-billion dollar industry of face masks and overpriced candles. Hooks would have hated that. For her, self-love wasn't about pampering; it was about survival and truth-telling.
She famously said: "Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself."
It sounds like a cliché until you actually try it. Honestly, it’s easier to find a stranger to validate you than it is to sit in a room alone and actually like the person you are. Hooks argued that we often seek relationships just to escape the fear of being alone. But if you can't be solitary, you aren't really "loving" the other person—you’re just using them as a distraction.
Why isolation isn't the answer
There’s a nuance here people miss. Hooks also said, "Self-love cannot flourish in isolation."
It feels like a contradiction, doesn't it? You have to love yourself, but you can't do it alone. What she meant was that we need a "loving environment" to learn how to love ourselves. We are communal creatures. You can’t heal in a vacuum. You need friends who tell you the truth, even when it sucks to hear.
There Can Be No Love Without Justice
This is the part that gets left off the Pinterest boards. Hooks was a radical. She knew that you can't claim to love someone while you're trying to dominate them.
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"There can be no love without justice," she wrote.
She wasn't just talking about the court system. She was talking about your living room. If one person has all the power and the other person is just "enduring," that’s not love. It’s a hostage situation with better lighting. She was particularly loud about how patriarchy ruins love for men, too. It forces them to "kill off the emotional parts of themselves" just to be "men."
You can't have a deep connection with someone who is emotionally mutilated. It just doesn’t work.
Truth-telling as a radical act
Lies are the death of love. Not just the big ones, like cheating, but the "little" ones. The "I'm fine" when you're not. The "I like that" when you hate it. Hooks believed that if we punish people for telling their truth, we are actively killing the possibility of love.
"To be loving we willingly hear the other's truth," she noted. That means even when that truth makes you look like the bad guy.
Romantic Love Isn't the "Final Boss"
We are obsessed with romance. Movies, songs, apps—it’s all geared toward finding "the one." Hooks thought this was kind of a scam. She pointed out that we often treat friendships as "secondary" to romantic ties, which is a huge mistake.
Friendship is actually where most of us get our first glimpse of "redemptive love."
In a world that’s increasingly lonely, we keep trying to put all our emotional eggs in one romantic basket. It’s too much pressure. No one person can be your therapist, your best friend, your lover, and your co-parent without cracking under the weight.
Moving Toward a Love Ethic
So, what do we actually do with these bell hooks love quotes?
Living by a "love ethic" means you decide that every interaction—even with the person cuting you off in traffic—is an opportunity for care, respect, and knowledge. It sounds exhausting. Kinda is. But the alternative is the "culture of domination" we’re currently drowning in.
Practical Steps to Practice Love
If you want to move beyond just reading quotes and actually live them, start here:
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- Audit your "ingredients": Look at your closest relationship. Is there trust? Is there actual respect, or just tolerance? Be honest.
- Learn to be solitary: Spend thirty minutes a day without your phone or another human. Get used to your own brain.
- Stop lying to be liked: Practice "truth-telling" in small ways. If you don't want to go to that party, say so.
- Invest in your "Beloved Community": Call a friend you haven't spoken to in months. Don't wait for a romantic partner to fill your social cup.
Love isn't a destiny. It's a discipline. As hooks taught us, the moment we choose to love, we begin to move against domination and toward freedom. It's the most revolutionary thing you can do with your life.