148 Quotes by Ivan Illich

We can only live the changes we wish to see: we cannot think our way to humanity. Every one of us, every group, must become the model of that which we desire to create. We must break the obsolete social and economic systems that divide the world between the over-privileged and the under-privileged. Each of us, whether government leader or protester, business executive or worker, professor or student, share a common guilt.

I believe that if something like a political life is to remain for us in this world of technology, then it begins with friendship. Therefore my task is to cultivate disciplined, self-denying, careful, tasteful friendships.

Observations of the sickening effect of programmed environments show that people in them become indolent, impotent, narcissistic and apolitical. The political process breaks down, because people cease to be able to govern themselves; they demand to be managed.

Leadership does not depend on being right.

Carry a candle in the dark, be a candle in the dark, know that you're a flame in the dark.

Schools are designed on the assumption that there is a secret to everything in life; that the quality of life depends upon knowing that secret; that secrets can only be known in orderly successions; and that only teachers can properly reveal these secrets. An individual with a schooled mind conceives of the world as a pyramid of classified packages accessible only to those who carry the proper tags.

The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies.

Health is not an objective condition which can be understood by the methods of natural science alone. It is rather a condition related to the mental attitude by which the individual has to value what is essential for his life.

The depersonalizati on of diagnosis and therapy has changed malpractice from an ethical into a technical problem.