Quotes by Ivan Illich

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.

We must rediscover the distinction between hope and expectation.

At the moment of death I hope to be surprised.

Leadership does not depend on being right.

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.

Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isnt organized to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.

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.