Ivan Illich Quotes

Quotes about:

• Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into the future so that we can take the next step… If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.

  Ivan Illich

  Powerful, Past, Light

  74 Copy quote

• School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.

  Ivan Illich

  Education, Believe, Learning

  51 Copy quote

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

  Ivan Illich

  Humorous, Health, Doctors

  "Medical Nemesis". Book by Ivan Illich, 1976.

  63 Copy quote

• In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

  Ivan Illich

  Two, Envy, Addiction

  Tools for Conviviality ch. 3 (1973)

  26 Copy quote

• We can only live changes: we cannot think our way to humanity. Every one of us, every group, must become the model of that which we desire to create.

  Ivan Illich

  Thinking, Humanity, Desire

  35 Copy quote

• If you want to change society then you must tell an alternative story.

  Ivan Illich

  Change, Alternatives, Stories

  6 Copy quote

• The pupil is ... 'schooled' to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new.

  Ivan Illich

  Teaching, Learning, Advancement

  Ivan Illich (1970). “The Dawn of Epimethean Man, and Other Essays”

  14 Copy quote

• The medical establishment has become the major threat to health.

  Ivan Illich

  Health, Medicine, Medical

  8 Copy quote

• The true miracle of modern medicine is diabolical. It consists in making not only individuals but whole populations survive on inhumanly low levels of personal health.

  Ivan Illich

  Medicine, Miracle, Population

  Ivan Illich (1976). “Limits to medicine”

  36 Copy quote

• School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught. Once this lesson is learned, people lose their incentive to grow in independence; they no longer find relatedness attractive, and close themselves off to the surprises which life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition.

  Ivan Illich

  Teaching, School, People

  47 Copy quote

• I believe that a desirable future depends on our deliberately choosing a life of action over a life of consumption, on our engendering a lifestyle which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a lifestyle which only allows to make and unmake, produce and consume - a style of life which is merely a way station on the road to the depletion and pollution of the environment. The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies.

  Ivan Illich

  Believe, Independent, Technology

  32 Copy quote

• We must rediscover the distinction between hope and expectation.

  Ivan Illich

  Hope, Expectations, Difficult Times

  63 Copy quote

• 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.

  Ivan Illich

  Teacher, School, Pyramids

  20 Copy quote

• The pupil's imagination is 'schooled' to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work.

  Ivan Illich

  Military, Race, Productive Work

  Ivan Illich (1970). “The Dawn of Epimethean Man, and Other Essays”

  36 Copy quote

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

  Ivan Illich

  Dark, Flames, Knows

  17 Copy quote

• Schools teach the need to be taught.

  Ivan Illich

  School, Needs, Taught

  29 Copy quote

• School is an institution built on the axiom that learning is the result of teaching. And institutional wisdom continues to accept this axiom, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

  Ivan Illich

  Education, Teaching, School

  Ivan Illich (1970). “The Dawn of Epimethean Man, and Other Essays”

  12 Copy quote

• The myth of unending consumption has taken the place of the belief in life everlasting.

  Ivan Illich

  Taken, Belief, Unending

  32 Copy quote

• School has become the world religion of a modernized proletariat, and makes futile promises of salvation to the poor of the technological age.

  Ivan Illich

  School, World Religions, Promise

  Ivan Illich (1970). “The Dawn of Epimethean Man, and Other Essays”

  29 Copy quote

• We have failed...through our lack of responsible awareness...and thus added to suffering around the world. All of us are cripples-some physically, some mentally, some emotionally. We must, therefore, strive cooperatively to create a new world. There is no time left for destruction, for hatred, for anger. We must build, in hope and joy and celebration.

  Ivan Illich

  Joy, Hatred, Suffering

  26 Copy quote

• Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting. Most people learn best by being "with it," yet school makes them identify their personal, cognitive growth with elaborate planning and manipulation.

  Ivan Illich

  Meaningful, Teaching, Learning

  "Deschooling Society". Book by Ivan Illich, 1971.

  19 Copy quote

• The medicalization of early diagnosis not only hampers and discourages preventative health-care but it also trains the patient-to-be to function in the meantime as an acolyte to his doctor. He learns to depend on the physician in sickness and in health. He turns into a life-long patient.

  Ivan Illich

  Doctors, Long, Physicians

  Medical Nemesis

  13 Copy quote

• Jesus was an anarchist savior. That's what the Gospels tell us.

  Ivan Illich

  Jesus, Anarchist, Anarchism

  "The Educational enterprise in the Light of the Gospel". Lecture in Chicago, www.davidtinapple.com. November 13, 1988.

  28 Copy quote

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

  Ivan Illich

  Education, School, Secular Society

  23 Copy quote

• 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, Believe, Acceptance

  31 Copy quote

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