Paulo Freire Quotes

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.

The suffering of our people is greater than our differences. We are not yet free at last, so there is work to be done.

I will lead my people out of bondage, Lord.

Representation is a crucial location of struggle for any exploited and oppressed people asserting subjectivity and decolonization of the mind.

Conquerors always call themselves liberators.

The tyrant is always stirring up some war or another, in order that the people may require a leader.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.

Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state..

Mandela was chosen as a symbol of the South African struggle, and he did that great. But I wasn't just happy for him. I was happy for the people.

The art of leadership . . . consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention. . . . The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belong to one category.

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

Friends, Comrades and fellow South Africans. I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all. I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.

People with real power never fear of losing it. People with control think of little else.

The probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave plantation.

The struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience.

We are here to work side-by-side with this "black" man in trying to bring liberation to all our people!

There was a thrust to raise the consciousness of the people and we argued that in order to free ourselves we must be ourselves, Africans, a people oppressed and in struggle. And we must be self-conscious about this.

The bad leaders are the ones that push hard so they can gain, who brow beat us so that they can receive the benefit of our hard work, not so we can enjoy the success

The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was... The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Our main goal as Iraqi people is to drive the occupation out in any way.

I'm not trying to get power over white. I'm involved in a freedom struggle. Not a power struggle.

Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object

Even revolution, which transforms a concrete situation of oppression by establishing the process of liberation, must confront this phenomenon. Many of the oppressed who directly or indirectly participate in revolution intend - conditioned by the myths of the old order - to make it their private revolution. The shadow of their former oppressor is still cast over them.

The greatest weapon the colonial powers have used in the past against our people has always been his ability to divide and conquer. If I take my hand and slap you, it might sting you because these digits are separated. But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring those digits together.

The enemies of a people are those who keep them in ignorance.