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

Even revolution, which transforms a concrete situation of oppression by establishing the process of liberation, must confront this phenomenon. Many of the oppressed who directly or indirectly participate in revolution intend - conditioned by the myths of the old order - to make it their private revolution. The shadow of their former oppressor is still cast over them.

... studying is a preparation for knowing; it is a patient and impatient exercise on the part of someone whose intent is not to know it all at once but to struggle to meet the timing of knowledge.

No matter how much someone may irritate me, I have no right to puff myself up with my own self-importance so as to declare that person to be absolutely incompetent, assuming a posture of disdain from my own position of false superiority.

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

I cannot be a teacher without exposing who I am.

The revolutionary's role is to liberate, and to be liberated, with the people--not to win them over.