Quotes About Empowerment

Thematic investigation is only justified to the extent that it returns to the people what truly belongs to them; to the extent that it represents, not an attempt to learn about the people, but to come to know with them the reality which challenges them.

Were it not possible to dialogue with the people before power is taken, because they have no experience with dialogue, neither would it be possible for the people to come to power, for they are equally inexperienced in the use of power.

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".

Testemunhando objetivamente sua história, mesmo a consciência ingênua acaba por despertar criticamente, para identificar-se como personagem que se ignorava e é chamada a assumir seu papel.

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.

Cito um exemplo de um estudioso de meu marido, que inadvertida e ingenuamente, asseverou que empoderamento é "Conceito central teórico e prático de Freire, presente pela primeira vez em Medo e ousadia, escrito em parceria com Ira Shor (1986)1.

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. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one 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.

Revolutionary leaders cannot think without the people, or for the people, but only with the people.

Personne n'éduque autrui, personne ne s'éduque seul, les hommes s'éduquent ensemble par l'intermédiaire du monde.

Ler, não é caminhar sobre as letras, mas interpretar o mundo e poder lançar sua palavra sobre ele, interferir no mundo pela ação.

Mais do que ser educando por causa de uma razão qualquer, o educando precisa tornar-se educando assumindo-se como sujeito cognoscente e não como incidência do discurso do educador. Nisto é que reside, em última análise, a grande importância política do ato de ensinar.

To speak a true word is to transform the world.

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.

Se nada ficar destas páginas, algo, pelo menos, esperamos que permaneça: nossa confiança no povo. Nossa fé nos homens e na criação de um mundo em que seja menos difícil amar

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

The revolution is made neither by the leaders for the people, nor by the people for the leaders, but by both acting together in unshakable solidarity.

For the dialogical, problem-posing teacher-student, the program content of education is neither a gift nor an imposition—bits of information to be deposited in the students—but rather the organized, systematized, and developed "re-presentation" to individuals of the things about which they want to know more.

It is only when the oppressed find the oppressor out and become involved in the organized struggle for their liberation that they begin to believe in themselves. This discovery cannot be purely intellectual but must involve action; nor can it be limited to mere activism, but must include serious reflection: only then will it be a praxis.

Sé q las cosas pueden incluso empeorar, pero también sé, q es posible intervenir para mejorarlas

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.

Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle.

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.

The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.

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.