As I turned around, I see the guy–this handsome, handsome man with skin the color of caramel popcorn and almond-shaped eyes. His beauty, to me, is right out of my mind’s own sketch pad. He’s a fantasy come true, and I want him to want me.

Janet Mock

Janet Mock on Her Fiance, Photographer Aaron Tredwell

March 10, 2015

Source: News One, 2014

Naturally. I think, first, one must understand what I'm talking about and what I'm trying to do when I say "love" and that the love ethic must be at the center of this struggle. I'm certainly not talking about an affectionate emotion. I'm not talking about what the Greek language would refer to as "Eros," or famile. I'm talking about something much deeper. And I think there's a misunderstanding.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Now that’s a great deal of love to care enough about a people to debase one’s self so that a whole people can survive. That’s a great deal of love. However, the last, greatest kind of love is to love yourself so much that you want to see the species continue.

When I graduated secondary school, what I really wanted to do was go straight to the hair salon and get my relaxer, so my hair would be straight. Then I came to the U.S., and ... I couldn't afford to get a relaxer at a hair salon here because I thought it was just needlessly expensive. So I went to the drugstore and bought the relaxer kit and decided to do it myself, which didn't end well. Having then a scalp with really bad burns, I suddenly thought, 'Why am I even doing this?' And that's when I stopped using relaxers. And it took a while to accept my hair for the way that it grows from my head.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I feel like relaxing my hair for 26 years really damaged it. But it’s natural now—and I love it.

Taraji P. Henson

People are always making suggestions to me. Like. ‘We love you, but why don't you do this or do that with your makeup and you'd be a knockout.' If they love me, why do they want me to change?

Whoopi Goldberg

There are a lot of things that I really wanted to be a part of... but I wasn't the specific look of what's 'beautiful' or 'exotic' or 'ethnically ambiguous.' I'm a black woman, undeniably.

Naturi Naughton

But certainly I used to wish I looked more like those girls in videos. I certainly used to wish that I was skinny, lighter-skinned, with long, pretty hair. But only because I used to get made fun of for being the absolute opposite. I didn’t see all of that stuff as the American Dream. I just wanted to look normal.

Gabourey Sidibe

I think I got to that place by not being happy with the other side — hating your body and criticizing yourself all the time. When I was around 18, I looked in the mirror and said, You're either going to love yourself or hate yourself. And I decided to love myself. That changed a lot of things.

You need to make peace with yourself, loving your body, loving your features and your skin, accepting who you are and what you are. The harmony will clearly show.

If you sweat, you clean your skin, you are energizing your body and your brain functions well.

But if your relationship is built on love you can work your way through almost any difficulty.

Daphne Maxwell Reid

I don’t think (celebrating Black beauty) can be a trend from the way that the business is moving. You can’t say that there isn’t an audience anymore because there’s so many places for an audience to find content that they like and relate to, that they’re interested in. Because of that, it can’t go backwards.

When I was growing up, trying to have hair I didn't have, straightening it, using heat, I was actually ruining what I was given. It was when I realized I needed to stop trying to be somebody else and be myself, I actually started to own, accept and love what I had.

Tracee Ellis Ross

You don't learn how to love without being courageous and free.

Dr. Cornel West

As for men, when you find a good woman you have to treat her like treasure and not trash. We have to start treating women like treasure that they are, so we can start building the Queen for the King we are to become.

I’m going to speak to you about love and the courage to love, indeed, about courage itself. It is the most important of all the virtues because without courage you cannot be sure that you can practice any other virtue with consistency. So it is important to develop courage, the courage to love in an era, in a time, when love is almost synonymous with distrust, abuse, misuse and, in fact, negligence. In order to love, I mean erotic love, agape love, familial love, platonic love, consistently, you must care first about yourselves because in order to say one loves someone else and act upon that love, one must really love one’s self.

It seems somewhat trivial when you call it a curly hair movement, but when you look at it in the context of the culture of beauty, and expanding our definition of what is considered beautiful, I think it has a larger impact. Embracing a larger, more diverse picture of what it means to be beautiful, that curly hair, natural hair, coarser textures, all fall within the context of beautiful. And for that, I am very grateful that's happening.

Tracee Ellis Ross

The biggest message is that we are beautiful beyond just our hair. To be able to shave off something so adored, to tap into your inner beauty and let it shine from within, is glorious and inspiring. It's beyond hair. It's spiritual cleansing. It's a refreshing thing to see and experience.

I know it sounds corny, but the secret to being beautiful is walking into a room with that confidence, that vibe that says, “I know what I’m talking about, I belong here.”