Paulo Freire: Trending quotes

“language is never neutral”

“To glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce; to discourse on humanism and to negate people is a lie.”

“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.”

“For people, 'here' signifies not merely a physical space, but also an historical space.”

“The educator has the duty of not being neutral.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“True solidarity is found only in the plenitude of this act of love, and in its existentiality, in its praxis.”

“One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.”

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

“If the structure does not permit dialogue the structure must be changed”

“… Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle…”

“The oppressors do not favor promoting the community as a whole, but rather selected leaders.”

“No one is born fully-formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are.”

“Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.”

“The greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves…”

“The behavior of the oppressed is a prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the oppressor.”