Paulo Freire Quotes

It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors.

The oppressed peoples can liberate themselves only through struggle. This is a simple and clear truth confirmed by history.

... within every form of oppression lies the seeds of liberation.

Freedom is a hard-bought thing and millions are in chains, but they strain toward the new day drawing near.

We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are not saviours. We are simply a tiny sign, among thousands of others, that love is possible, that the world is not condemned to a struggle between oppressors and oppressed, that class and racial warfare is not inevitable.

You will be emancipated from tyranny and oppression …

Peoples, hear the signal! Arise, for the last battle The International Fights for the Rights of Man! No higher being can save us, No God, no Kaiser, nor tribune Saving us from misery we ourselves alone must do!

No doubt it is also necessary to improve the classes who now oppress you, but you will never succeed in doing this unless you begin by improving yourselves.

For revolutionary Cubans, to cooperate with other poor and exploited peoples has always been a political principle and a duty towards humanity.

It is so sad that it takes so long for people to understand what needs to happen in order to be free.

Every progressive movement has been built on the anger, needs, and aspirations of the emerging major class.

In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit , but as a limiting situation which they can transform.

This is not a jungle war, but a struggle for freedom on every front of human activity.

It is essential for the oppressed to realize that when they accept the struggle for humanization they also accept, from that moment, their total responsibility for the struggle.

If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.

Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian theology.

If as a member of a slave nation I could deliver the suppressed classes from their slavery without freeing myself from my own, I would do so today. But it is an impossible task.

Only struggle educates the exploited class. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will.

The worker of the world has nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite.

Otherwise we get off the track and we do not fulfil the historical role which we want to fulfil: to help the masses, the exploited and the oppressed of the world, build a classless society, a world socialist federation.

And the spirit of revolution will not die while the hearts of these workers continue to beat.

We shall suffer no attachment to literature, no taste for abstract discussion, no love of purely intellectual theories, to seduce us from our devotion to the cause of the oppressed, the down trodden, the insulted and injured masses of our fellow men.

The people of Nicaragua were suffering oppression. This made us develop an awareness which eventually led us to commit ourselves to the struggle against the domination of the capitalists of our country in collusion with the U.S. government, i.e. imperialism.

I'm a political poet - let us say a 'human' poet, a poet that's concerned with the plight of people who suffer. If words can be of assistance, then that's what I'm going to use.

I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.