Latin America can no longer tolerate being a haven for United States liberals who cannot make their point at home, an outlet for apostles too "apostolic" to find their vocation as competent professionals within their own community. The hardware salesman threatens to dump second-rate imitations of parishes, schools and catechisms -- out-moded even in the United States -- all around the continent. The traveling escapist threatens further to confuse a foreign world with his superficial protests, which are not viable even at home.
Ivan IllichModern 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 IllichIn a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
Ivan IllichIt takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they "speak with the accent of natives" they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds.
Ivan Illich