46 Notable Quotes By Paulo Freire, The Renowned Brazilian Philosopher
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.
If the structure does not permit dialogue the structure must be changed
Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future.
… Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle…
No one is born fully-formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are.
The oppressors do not favor promoting the community as a whole, but rather selected leaders.
Language is never neutral
Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.
The greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves...
Reading is not walking on the words; it's grasping the soul of them.
The educator has the duty of not being neutral.
The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom.
To simply think about the people, as the dominators do, without any self-giving in that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being revolutionary leaders.
Dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed
The multitude is always in the wrong.
Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information.
To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce.
Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is a commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause--the cause of liberation.
To glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce; to discourse on humanism and to negate people is a lie.
This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well.
One cannot conceive of objectivity without subjectivity.
P46- As long as the oppressed remain unaware of the causes of their condition, they fatalistically "accept" their exploitation.
...to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects.
Liberation is a praxis : the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.
From the first, the act of conquest, which reduces persons to the status of things, is necrophilia
P53-knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, the restless,impatient,continuing,hopeful inquiry beings pursue with the world and with others.
P57- the oppressors, whose tranquility rests on how well people fit the world the oppressors have created, and how little they question it.
No oppressive order could permit the oppressed to being to question: Why?
P26 - Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both.
