286 Quotes by Paulo Freire

It is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.

Each, however, as he revolves about “his” truth, feels threatened if that truth is questioned. Thus, each considers anything that is not “his” truth a lie.

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.

It’s in making decisions that we learn to decide.

Without this faith in people, dialogue is a farce which inevitably degenerates into paternalistic manipulation.

Only by abolishing the situation of oppression is it possible to restore the love which that situation made impossible. If I do not live the world – if I do not love life – if I do not love people – I cannot enter into dialogue.

In order to have the continued opportunity to express their “generosity” the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well.

It happens, however, that large sectors of the oppressed form an urban proletariat, especially in the more industrialized centers of the country. Although these sectors are occasionally restive, they lack revolutionary consciousness and consider themselves privileged. Manipulation, with its series of deceits and promises, usually finds fertile ground here.

It’s no sin to make a critical study of Brazil’s reality. A small percentage own land. Most people don’t.