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The customary law which humanized the environment by establishing the commons was usually unwritten. It was unwritten law not only because people did not care to write it down, but because what it protected was a reality much too complex to fit into paragraphs.

— Ivan Illich Silence is a Commons (1982)

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More quotes by Ivan Illich

A cosmic struggle among ever more complex forms of life has become the anthropic foundational myth of the scientific age.

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

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

Tools for Conviviality (1973)

Churches also have their problems with a Jesus whose only economics are jokes.

Universal education through schooling is not feasible. It would be no more feasible if it were attempted by means of alternative institutions built on the style of present schools.

Deschooling Society (1971)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ivan Illich (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.