Paulo Freire Quotes

Thematic investigation thus becomes a common striving towards awareness of reality and towards self-awareness, which makes this investigation a starting point for the educational process or for cultural action of a liberating character.

The former oppressors do not feel liberated. On the contrary, they genuinely consider themselves to be oppressed.

Founding itself upon love, humility, and faith, dialogue becomes a horizontal relationship of which mutual trust between the dialoguers is a logical consequence.

Discovering himself to be an oppressor may cause considerable anguish, but it does not necessarily lead to solidarity with the oppressed.

Welfare programs as instruments of manipulation ultimately serve the end of conquest. They act as an anesthetic, distracting the oppressed from the true causes of their problems and from the concrete solutions of these problems.

For cultural invasion to succeed, it is essential that those invaded become convinced of their intrinsic inferiority.

Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers.

The atmosphere of the home is prolonged in school, where students soon discover that (as in the home) in order to achieve some satisfaction they must adapt to the precepts which have been set from above. One of these precepts is not to think.

For people, 'here' signifies not merely a physical space, but also an historical space.

The road to revolution involves openness to the people, not imperviousness to them; it involves communion with the people, not mistrust.

Unfortunately, what happens to a greater or lesser degree in the various "worlds" into which the world is divided is that the ordinary person is crushed, diminished, converted into a spectator, maneuvered by myths which powerful social forces have created. These myths turn against him; they destroy and annihilate him. Tragically frightened, men fear authentic relationships and even doubt the possibility of their existence.

Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.

While no one liberates himself by his own efforts alone, neither is he liberated by others.

How can the oppressed, as divided unauthentic beings, participate in the pedagogy of their liberation?

This work deals with a very obvious truth: just as the oppressor, in order to oppress, needs a theory of oppressive action, so the oppressed, in order to become free, also need a theory of action.