Paulo Freire quotes

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)
Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information. View quote
Paulo Freire
Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students. View quote
Paulo Freire
How can the oppressed, as divided unauthentic beings, participate in the pedagogy of their liberation? View quote
Paulo Freire
In sum: banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people's historicity as their starting point. View quote
Paulo Freire
For people, 'here' signifies not merely a physical space, but also an historical space. View quote
Paulo Freire
The oppressed find in the oppressors their model of 'manhood. View quote
Paulo Freire
Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in 'changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them'. View quote
Paulo Freire
The oppressors develop a series of methods precluding any presentation of the world as a problem and showing it rather as a fixed entity, as something given--something to which people, as mere spectators, must adapt. View quote
Paulo Freire
Some may think that to affirm dialogue--the encounter of women and men in the world in order to transform the world--is naively and subjectively idealistic. There is nothing, however, more real or concrete than people in the world and with the world, than humans with other humans. View quote
Paulo Freire
Dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed. (Paulo Freire)
To simply think about the people, as the dominators do, without any self-giving in that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being revolutionary leaders. View quote
Paulo Freire
The former oppressors do not feel liberated. On the contrary, they genuinely consider themselves to be oppressed. View quote
Paulo Freire
The unfinished character of human beings and the transformational character of reality necessitate that education be an ongoing activity. View quote
Paulo Freire
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. View quote
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. View quote
Paulo Freire
Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building. View quote
Paulo Freire
The oppressors do not favor promoting the community as a whole, but rather selected leaders. View quote
Paulo Freire
The behavior of the oppressed is a prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the oppressor. View quote
Paulo Freire
The behavior and reactions of the oppressed, which lead the oppressor to practice cultural invasion, should evoke from the revolutionary a different theory of action. What distinguishes revolutionary leaders from the dominant elite is not only their objectives, but their procedures. View quote
Paulo Freire
Dialogue cannot exist without humility. (Paulo Freire)
Implicit in the banking concept is the assumption of a dichotomy between human beings and the world: a person is merely in the world, not with the world or with others; the individual is spectator, not re-creator. View quote
Paulo Freire
Dialogue cannot exist, however, in the absence of a profound love for the world and its people. View quote
Paulo Freire
Problem-posing education affirms men and women as beings in the process of becoming. View quote
Paulo Freire
It is not suprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. View quote
Paulo Freire