“The road to revolution involves openness to the people, not imperviousness to them; it involves communion with the people, not mistrust.”

— Paulo Freire

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

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Paulo Freire 115

educator and philosopher 1921–1997

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“Revolution did not necessarily involve sanguinary strife. It was not a cult of bomb and pistol.”

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Context: Revolution did not necessarily involve sanguinary strife. It was not a cult of bomb and pistol. They may sometimes be mere means for its achievement. No doubt they play a prominent part in some movements, but they do not — for that very reason — become one and the same thing. A rebellion is not a revolution. It may ultimately lead to that end.
The sense in which the word Revolution is used in that phrase, is the spirit, the longing for a change for the better. The people generally get accustomed to the established order of things and begin to tremble at the very idea of a change. It is this lethargical spirit that needs be replaced by the revolutionary spirit. Otherwise degeneration gains the upper hand and the whole humanity is led stray by the reactionary forces. Such a state of affairs leads to stagnation and paralysis in human progress. The spirit of Revolution should always permeate the soul of humanity, so that the reactionary forces may not accumulate to check its eternal onward march. Old order should change, always and ever, yielding place to new, so that one “good” order may not corrupt the world. It is in this sense that we raise the shout “Long Live Revolution.”