“Individuals who were submerged in reality, merely feeling their needs, emerge from reality and perceive the causes of their needs.”
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)
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Paulo Freire 115
educator and philosopher 1921–1997Related quotes

“What we needed were not words and promises but the steady accumulation of small realities.”
Variant: What we needed were not words and promises but a steady accumulation of small realities.
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Psychedelic Society (1984)
Context: Our ability to destroy ourselves is the mirror image of our ability to save ourselves, and what is lacking is the clear vision of what should be done... What needs to be done is that fundamental, ontological conceptions of reality need to be redone. We need a new language, and to have a new language we must have a new reality... A new reality will generate a new language, a new language will fix a new reality, and make it part of this reality.

Told to thousands at the New Jersey concert for Live Earth

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 4