PAULO FREIRE

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

It is absolutely essential that the oppressed participate in the revolutionary process with an increasingly critical awareness of their role as subjects of the transformation.

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

I am an educator who thinks globally.

It's no sin to make a critical study of Brazil's reality. A small percentage own land. Most people don't.

Education is freedom.

Just as it is important in Latin America to discuss ideas that come from North America, I think it is interesting for North Americans to discuss ideas that come from Latin America or Africa and do not insert themselves into capitalist interests.

Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world.

The trust of the people in the leaders reflects the confidence of the leaders in the people.

It is not systematic education which somehow molds society, but, on the contrary, society which, according to its particular structure, shapes education in relation to the ends and interests of those who control the power in that society.

Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information.

At a certain point in their existential experience, the oppressed feel an irresistible attraction toward the oppressor and his way of life. Sharing this way of life becomes an overpowering aspiration.

At times, I have been criticized by some philosophers of education, who place me in postures that they classify pejoratively as 'revolutionary.' But I have had the satisfaction of being invited to work in societies making progressive efforts without wavering. They were changing, and so they called on me.

Every society needs to examine itself in relation to other societies.

Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried on with the oppressed at whatever the stage of their struggle for liberation. The content of that dialogue can and should vary in accordance with historical conditions and the level at which the oppressed perceive reality.

Manipulation, sloganizing, depositing, regimentation, and prescription cannot be components of revolutionary praxis, precisely because they are the components of the praxis of domination.

The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom.

Education must begin with the solution of the student-teacher contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.

Revolution is born as a social entity within the oppressor society.

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

The oppressed find in the oppressors their model of 'manhood.'

The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors…. The oppressed find in the oppressors their model of 'manhood/

As the oppressor minority subordinates and dominates the majority, it must divide it and keep it divided in order to remain in power.

[Humans'] capacity to intervene, to compare, to judge, to decide, to choose, to desist makes them capable of acts of greatness, of dignity, and, at the same time, of the unthinkable in terms of indignity.

Reading is not walking on the words; it's grasping the soul of them.