Paulo Freire Quotes

You get to the point where you realize that unless you, yourself, become more of the change, you can't create too much change.

The greatest thing is, at any moment, to be willing to give up who we are in order to become all that we can be.

Principles are the most important thing to me. One of the things I think my dad taught me was there are people who accept the world they live in and there are people who change the world they live in. I don't accept my circumstances.

I invented myself.

Anybody can be anybody.

Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.

We can learn to be the catalysts for our own change.

I wish people used wishes to modify themselves instead of others. Wish to be low maintenance. Wish to be autonomous, even.

The only thing in the world you can change is yourself and that makes all the difference in the world.

Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

To change what you get you must change who you are.

Nature, philosophy and social issues are the three things that always occupy my mind. You do not have any power over others but can only change yourself.

Changing your nature is the hardest thing to do. But I discovered that you can be who you choose to be.

Everybody eventually discovers that they are an individual with the power to affect their own lives and make it better or not.

No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or emotional appeal.

I want the subject to be in control. Because they will give me something I couldn't possibly know about them.

We participate in the creation of the world by decreating ourselves.

Everybody has their story - at some point you have to say, 'This is who I am: Now it's up to me to become what I want to be.'

I made my own assessment of my life, and I began to live it. That was freedom.

Before you can do something you must first be something.

I don't think anyone has made me except myself. I think I have done it on my own.

Human improvement is from within outward.

I want my little girl to tell me who she is so I can encourage her and not impose my desires for her on her life. I want her to dream big and to know that if she is willing to earn it, she can have anything - and become anything.

The best thing we can do is develop our own.

One creates oneself.