Paulo Friere 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed'
1. 53 Quotes from Freire
Pedagogy of the Oppressed Quotes
Pedagogy of the Oppressed Quotes (showing 1-30 of 53)
“Education
either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of
the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about
conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and
women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to
participate in the transformation of their world.”
― Richard Shaull, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“Leaders who do not act dialogically, but
insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate
them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: liberation, oppression
“[T]he
more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so
that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not
afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not
afraid to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them. This person
does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all
people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or
herself, within history, to fight at their side.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“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.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: liberation, oppression
“…
Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle…”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: inspirational, political
“The
oppressors do not favor promoting the community as a whole, but rather selected
leaders.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: liberation, oppression
“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.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: advice, culture, education, politics
“For apart from inquiry, apart from the
praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through
invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing,
hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each
other.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“True
generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish
false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the
"rejects of life," to extend their trembling hands. True generosity
lies in striving so that these hands--whether of individuals or entire
peoples--need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more
they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: generosity, poverty, revolution
“...the
fact that certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in their
struggle for liberation, thus moving from one pole of the contradiction to the
other... Theirs is a fundamental role, and has been throughout the history of
this struggle. It happens, however, that as they cease to be exploiters or
indifferent spectators or simply the heirs of exploitation and move to the side
of the exploited, they almost always bring with them the marks of their origin:
their prejudices and their deformations, which include a lack of confidence in
the people's ability to think, to want, and to know. Accordingly, these
adherents to the people's cause constantly run the risk of falling into a type
of generosity as malefic as that of the oppressors. The generosity of the
oppressors is nourished by an unjust order, which must be maintained in order
to justify that generosity. Our converts, on the other hand, truly desire to
transform the unjust order; but because of their background they believe that
they must be the executors of the transformation. They talk about the people,
but they do not trust them; and trusting the people is the indispensable
precondition for revolutionary change. A real humanist can be identified more
by his trust in the people, which engages him in their struggle, than by a
thousand actions in their favor without that trust.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“The
oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his
guidelines, are fearful of freedom.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“It is
not the unloved who initiate disaffection, but those who cannot love because
they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who
initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power create the concrete situation
which begets the 'rejects of life.' It is not the tyrannized who initiate
despotism, but the tyrants. It is not those whose humanity is denied them who
negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own
as well). Force is used not by those who have become weak under the
preponderance of the strong, but by the strong who have emasculated them.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“To
simply think about the people, as the dominators do, without any self-giving in
that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being
revolutionary leaders. ”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: liberation, oppression
“It is
necessary that the weakness of the powerless is transformed into a force
capable of announcing justice. For this to happen, a total denouncement of
fatalism is necessary. We are transformative beings and not beings for
accommodation.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“Dehumanization,
although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of
an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn
dehumanizes the oppressed”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: adam-gottbetter, dehumanisation, dehumanization, education-system, educational, educational-system, oppression
“No
pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by
treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from
among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle
for their redemption (Freire, 1970, p. 54).”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: liberation
“The
radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a
'circle of certainty' within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary,
the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so
that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is
not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is
not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. This person
does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all
people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or
herself, within history, to fight at their side.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“An
unauthentic word, one which is unable to transform reality, results when
dichotomy is imposed upon its constitutive elements. When a word is deprived of
its dimension of action, reflection automatically suffers as well; and the word
is changed into idle chatter, into verbalism, into an alienated and alienating
“blah.” It becomes an empty word, one which cannot denounce the world, for
denunciation is impossible without a commitment to transform, and there is no
transformation without action.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“Even
revolution, which transforms a concrete situation of oppression by establishing
the process of liberation, must confront this phenomenon. Many of the oppressed
who directly or indirectly participate in revolution intend - conditioned by
the myths of the old order - to make it their private revolution. The shadow of
their former oppressor is still cast over them.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“To
glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce; to discourse on
humanism and to negate people is a lie.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“Libertarian
action must recognize this dependence as a weak point and must attempt through
reflection and action to transform it into independence. However, not even the
best-intentioned leadership can bestow independence as a gift. The liberation
of the oppressed is a liberation of women and men, not things. Accordingly,
while no one liberates himself by his own efforts alone, neither is he
liberated by others. Liberation, a human phenomenon, cannot be achieved by
semihumans. Any attempt to treat people as semihumans only dehumanizes them.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“This,
then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate
themselves and their oppressors as well.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“Teachers
and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects,
not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it
critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge. As they attain this
knowledge of reality through common reflection and action, they discover
themselves as its permanent re-creators.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: education, education-system
“Freedom
is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and
responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea
which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for
human completion.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: critical-pedagogy
“One
cannot conceive of objectivity without subjectivity.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“P15 -
Our advanced technological society is rapidly making objects of us and subtly
programming us into conformity to the logic of its system to the degree that
this happens, we are also becoming submerged in a new "Culture of
Silence".”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: modern-society, oppression, technology
“In a
situation of manipulation, the Left is almost always tempted by a “quick return
to power,” forgets the necessity of joining with the oppressed to forge an
organization, and strays into an impossible “dialogue” with the dominant
elites. It ends by being manipulated by these elites, and not infrequently
itself falls in an elitist game, which it calls “realism.”
Manipulation, like the conquest whose objectives it serves, attempts to
anesthetize the people so they will not think. For if the people join to their
presence in the historical process critical thinking about that process, the
threat of their emergence materializes in revolution…One of the methods of
manipulation is to inoculate individuals with the bourgeois appetite for
personal success. This manipulation is sometimes carried out directly by the
elites and sometimes indirectly, through populist leaders.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“But
almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead
of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or
“sub-oppressors.” The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by
the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were
shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors.
This is their model of humanity.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th
Anniversary Edition
“The man
or woman who proclaims devotion to the cause of liberation yet is unable to
enter into communion with the people, whom he or she continues to regard
as totally ignorant, is grievously self-deceived. The convert who approaches
the people but feels alarm at each step they take, each doubt they express, and
each suggestion they offer, and attempts to impose his "status,"
remains nostalgic towards his origins.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
tags: education, education-system
“I can
not think for others or without others,nor can others think for me. Even if the
people's thinking is superstitious or naive,it is only as they rethink their
assumptions in action that they can change. Producing and acting upon their own
ideas—not consuming those of others.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed