Quotes About Freedom

One does not liberate people by alienating them.

The teacher who does not respect the student's curiosity in its diverse aesthetic, linguistic, and syntactical expressions; who uses irony to put down legitimate questioning (recognizing of course that freedom is not absolute, that it requires of its nature certain limits); who is not respectfully present in the educational experience of the student, transgresses fundamental ethical principles of the human condition.

The oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors.

The great challenge for the democratic-minded educator is how to transmit a sense of limit that can be ethically integrated by freedom itself. The more consciously freedom assumes its necessary limits, the more authority it has, ethically speaking, to continue to struggle in its own name.

As an act of bravery, love cannot be sentimental; as an act of freedom, it must not serve as a pretext for manipulation. It must generate other acts of freedom; otherwise, it is not love.

La Pedagogía del oprimido, deja de ser del oprimido y pasa a ser la pedagogía de los hombres en proceso de permanente liberación.

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

Oppression --overwhelming control -- is necrophilic; it is nourished by love of death, not life.

Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects.

Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, 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.

To achieve critical consciousness of the facts that it is necessary to be the "owner of one's own labor," that labor "constitutes part of the human person," and that "a human being can neither be sold nor can he sell himself" is to go a step beyond the deception of palliative solutions. It is to engage in authentic transformation of reality in order, by humanizing that reality, to humanize women and men.

The revolution loves and creates life; and in order to create life it may be obliged to prevent some men from circumscribing life. In addition to the life-death cycle basic to nature, there is almost an unnatural living death: life which is denied its fullness.

The restraints imposed by the former oppressed on their oppressors, so that the latter cannot resume their former position, do not constitute oppression . An act is oppressive only when it prevents men from from being more fully human... Behaviour which prevents the restoration of the oppressive regime cannot be compared with the acts by which few men deny the majority their right to be human.

E que, quase sempre, num primeiro momento deste descobrimento, os oprimidos, em vez de buscar a libertação na luta e por ela, tendem a ser opressores também, ou subopressores. A estrutura do seu pensar se encontra condicionada pela contradição vivida na situação concreta, existencial, em que se "formam".

Internalizing paternal authority through the rigid relationship structure emphasized by the school, these young people tend when they become professionals (because of the very fear of freedom instilled by these relationships) to repeat the rigid patterns in which they were miseducated. This phenomenon, in addition to their class position, perhaps explains why so many professionals adhere to antidialogical action

The shadow of their former oppressor is still cast over them.

Along the same lines, it is indispensable to analyze the contents of newspaper editorials following any given event: "Why do different newspapers have such different interpretations of the same fact?" This practice helps develop a sense of criticism, so that people will react to newspapers or news broadcasts not as passive objects of the "communiqués" directed at them, but rather as consciousnesses seeking to be free.

No que diz respeito às relações autoridade-liberdade, [...], corremos também o risco de, negando à liberdade o direito de afirmar-se, exacerbar a autoridade ou, atrofiando esta, hipertrofiar aquela. Em outras palavras, corremos o risco de cair seduzidos ou pela tirania da liberdade ou pela tirania da autoridade, trabalhando, em qualquer das hipóteses, contra a nossa incipiente democracia.

Men and women rarely admit their fear of freedom openly, however, tending rather to camouflage it—sometimes unconsciously—by presenting themselves as defenders of freedom.

In the process of transition of revolution, is to create an education that enlarges and amplifies the horizon of critical understanding of the people, to cre­ate an education devoted to freedom.

in order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it.

If the humanization of the oppressed signifies subversion, so also does their freedom; hence the necessity for constant control. And the more the oppressors control the oppressed, the more they change them into apparently inanimate "things." This tendency of the oppressor consciousness to "in-animate" everything and everyone it encounters, in its eagerness to possess, unquestionably corresponds with a tendency to sadism.

As long as the oppressed remain unaware of the causes of their condition, they fatalistically "accept" their exploitation. Further, they are apt to react in a passive and alienated manner when confronted with the necessity to struggle for their freedom and self-affirmation. Little by little, however, they tend to try out forms of rebellious action. In working towards liberation, one must neither lose sight of this passivity nor overlook the moment of awakening.

Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.