Paulo Freire

Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is a commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is a commitment to their cause—the cause of liberation.

To be human is to be in a constant process of becoming.

Dialogue cannot exist without humility.

Problem-posing education, as a humanistic and liberating praxis, constantly serves that end. Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers.

Without dialogue, there is no communication; and without communication, there can be no true education.

Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry men pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.

The object of dialogue is not to conquer but to clarify, to make explicit, to make visible the implicit.

It is not enough to read the word, but to read the world.

Authentic education is not carried on by 'A' for 'B' or by 'A' about 'B,' but rather by 'A' with 'B,' mediated by the world—a world which impresses and challenges both parties, giving rise to views and opinions about it.

The capacity to reflect critically on reality and to act on it to transform it.

The more accurately students understand the world, the more they are able to transform it.

The unauthentic word, lacking a sense of responsibility for the world, cannot transform it.

One of the gravest obstacles to the achievement of liberation is the fatalistic perception of reality.

The naming of the world, which is an act of creation and re-creation, is not possible if it is not associated with the transformation of the world.

Man's ontological vocation is to be a subject who acts upon and transforms his world, and in so doing moves toward ever new possibilities of fuller and richer life individually and collectively.

There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis.

The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but he who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow.

Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human.

Liberation is a childbirth, and a painful one.

The starting point for organizing the program content of education or political action must be the present, existential, concrete situation, reflecting the aspirations of the people.