286 Quotes by Paulo Freire

The former oppressors do not feel liberated. On the contrary, they genuinely consider themselves to be oppressed.

Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people, not for them. Liberation is like a childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person: no longer either oppressor or oppressed, but a person in the process of achieving freedom. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors.

It is not suprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings.

The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors.

Although the teachers or the students are not the same, the person in charge of education is being formed or re-formed as he/she teaches, and the person who is being taught forms him/herself in the process. ...There is, in fact, no teaching without learning.

True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity.

Whether the teacher is authoritarian, undisciplined, competent, incompetent, serious, irresponsible, involved, a lover of people and of life, cold, angry with the world, bureaucratic, excessively rational, or whatever else, he/she will not pass through the classroom without leaving his or her mark on the students.

Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in 'changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them';

Reflection and action must never be undertaken independently.