Ivan Illich Quotes

As a scholar I have been shaped by a monastic traditions and by the interpretation of medieval texts. Early on I took it for granted that the principal condition for an atmosphere that is propitious...

Ivan Illich

The Cultivation of Conspiracy - 1998 - "The Cultivation of Conspiracy" - expansion of an address delivered in Bremen, Germany, on receiving the Bremen Culture and Peace Prize - 14 March 1998

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Community in our European tradition is not the outcome of an act of authoritative foundation, nor a gift from nature or its gods, nor the result of management, planning and design, but the...

Ivan Illich

The Cultivation of Conspiracy - 1998 - "The Cultivation of Conspiracy" - expansion of an address delivered in Bremen, Germany, on receiving the Bremen Culture and Peace Prize - 14 March 1998

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The other eminent moment of the celebration was, of course, the comestio, the communion in the flesh, the incorporation of the believer in the body of the Incarnate Word, but communio was...

Ivan Illich

The Cultivation of Conspiracy - 1998 - "The Cultivation of Conspiracy" - expansion of an address delivered in Bremen, Germany, on receiving the Bremen Culture and Peace Prize - 14 March 1998

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The Latin osculum is neither very old nor frequent. It is one of three words that can be translated by the English, "kiss." In comparison with the affectionate basium and the lascivious suavium,...

Ivan Illich

The Cultivation of Conspiracy - 1998 - "The Cultivation of Conspiracy" - expansion of an address delivered in Bremen, Germany, on receiving the Bremen Culture and Peace Prize - 14 March 1998

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Speaking about pax in the proto-Christan epoch turned out to be a delicate matter, because around the year 300 pax became a key word in the Christian liturgy. It became the euphemism for a...

Ivan Illich

The Cultivation of Conspiracy - 1998 - "The Cultivation of Conspiracy" - expansion of an address delivered in Bremen, Germany, on receiving the Bremen Culture and Peace Prize - 14 March 1998

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The impending loss of spirit, of soul, of what I call atmosphere, could go unnoticed. Only persons who face one another in trust can allow its emergence. The bouquet of friendship varies with each...

Ivan Illich

The Cultivation of Conspiracy - 1998 - "The Cultivation of Conspiracy" - expansion of an address delivered in Bremen, Germany, on receiving the Bremen Culture and Peace Prize - 14 March 1998

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Learned and leisurely hospitality is the only antidote to the stance of deadly cleverness that is acquired in the professional pursuit of objectively secured knowledge. I remain certain that the...

Ivan Illich

The Cultivation of Conspiracy - 1998 - "The Cultivation of Conspiracy" - expansion of an address delivered in Bremen, Germany, on receiving the Bremen Culture and Peace Prize - 14 March 1998

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I can choose. I have to choose. I have to make my mind up whom I will take into my arms, to whom I will lose myself, whom I will treat as that vis-a-vis, that face into which I look, which I lovingly...

Ivan Illich

We the People interview - 1996

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This breaking of the limitations of hospitality to a small in-group, of offering it to the broadest possible in-group, and saying, you determine who your guest is, might be taken as the key message...

Ivan Illich

We the People interview - 1996

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Here is the right word. Hospitality was a condition consequent on a good society in politics, politaea, and by now might be the starting point of politaea, of politics. But this is difficult because...

Ivan Illich

We the People interview - 1996

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