Paulo Freire Quotes

"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."
— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. "
— Paulo Freire

"The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side."
— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

"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."
— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

"… Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle…"
— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

"The greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves..."
— Paulo Freire

"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."
— Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

"The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own