As long as I fight, I am moved by hope; and if I fight with hope, then I can wait.

— Paulo Freire

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

Education must begin with the solution of the student-teacher contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.

— Paulo Freire

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

It is not systematic education which somehow molds society, but, on the contrary, society which, according to its particular structure, shapes education in relation to the ends and interests of those who control the power in that society.

— Paulo Freire

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

Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information.

— Paulo Freire

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

No oppressive order could permit the oppressed to begin to question: Why?

— Paulo Freire

No oppressive order could permit the oppressed to being to question: Why?

— Paulo Freire