Paulo Freire Quotes

The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we do to each other.

As there is oppression of the majority such oppression will be fought with increasing hatred.

No privileged order ever did see the wrongs of its own victims.

Huge imbalance in power has resulted in the alienation, rage, fury, and awful amoral terrorism that has erupted and is erupting at the present time. And in order to counter this, we need to make the compassionate voice of religion and morality a dynamic force in our world.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.

You want to free the world, free humanity, from oppression? Look inside, look sideways, look at the hidden violence of language. Never forget that language is where the other, parallel violence, the cruelty exercised on the body, originates.

In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty.

I think that children are acutely sensitive to injustice because they live in a world that is absolutely filled with injustice. They have very, very little power, and they are extremely aware of power relations.

Humans are insane. We kill our own people, starve our own people, sell them, work them to death, beat them, don't give them affordable/free/good healthcare, and let them live in misery, while a few of us have - we have all we want. We are evil.

The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places.

All oppression creates a state of war.

Might was the measure of right.

Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery.

I hate victims who respect their executioners.

The origin of all revolutions and corruption, and the spur and source of all base morals are just two sayings: The First Saying: 'So long as I'm full, what is it to me if others die of hunger?' The Second Saying: 'You suffer hardship so that I can live in ease; you work so that I can eat.'

Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.

Never mind a world that can't see past brutality.

Racism and injustice and violence sweep our world, bringing a tragic harvest of heartache and death.

Violence and racism are bad. Whenever they occur they are to be condemned and we should not turn a blind eye to them.

When a person is humiliated, when his rights are being violated, and he does not have the proper education, naturally he gravitates toward terrorism.

Where educational deprivation exists, it breeds conflict and enables repression.

If we continue to create a world where there is poverty and disrespect, there will continue to be terrorism.

Drama lives on conflict. If you're trying to deal with social issues seriously, there's no way of avoiding violence, which is so present in society.

Each time a new war is disclosed in the name of the fight of the good against evil, those who are killed are all poor. It's always the same story repeating once and again and again.