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Ivan Illich

8 quotes

Ivan Illich is one of those voices you encounter and immediately want to hear more from. Whether reflecting on Health or Hope, Ivan Illich brought uncommon clarity to every subject. 12 of Ivan Illich's sharpest quotes live here, spanning themes of Health, Hope, Work, Society, and Medical. Readers often gravitate to this one: "Effective health care depends on self-care this fact is currently heralded as if it were a discovery."

“The public school has become the established church of secular society.”

— Ivan Illich

Society

All Quotes by Ivan Illich

“At the moment of death I hope to be surprised.”

— Ivan Illich

Death

“Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn't organized to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.”

— Ivan Illich

Health

“The public school has become the established church of secular society.”

— Ivan Illich

Society

“Effective health care depends on self-care this fact is currently heralded as if it were a discovery.”

— Ivan Illich

Health

“We must rediscover the distinction between hope and expectation.”

— Ivan Illich

Hope

“Leadership does not depend on being right.”

— Ivan Illich

Leadership

“Healthy people are those who live in healthy homes on a healthy diet in an environment equally fit for birth, growth work, healing, and dying... Healthy people need no bureaucratic interference to mate, give birth, share the human condition and die.”

— Ivan Illich

Diet

“The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.”

— Ivan Illich

Attitude