It is truly difficult to make a democracy. Democracy, like arty dream, is not made with spiritual words but with reflection and practice. It is not what I say that says I am a democrat, that I am not racist or machista but what I do. What I say must not be contradicted by what I do. It is what I do that bespeaks my faithfulness or not to what I say.

Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion.

To speak a true word is to transform the world.

One of my major preoccupations is the approximation between what I say and what I do, between what I seem to be and what I am actually becoming.

The world is split between those who do not sleep because they are hungry and those who do not sleep because they are afraid of those who are hungry.

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

Teacher preparation should go beyond the technical preparation of teachers and be rooted in the ethical formation both of selves and of history.