The most important thing any teacher has to learn, not to be learned in any school of education I ever heard of, can be expressed in seven words: Lea… - John Holt

The idea of painless, non-threatening coercion is an illusion. Fear is the inseparable companion of coercion, and its inescapable consequence. If you think it your duty to make children do what you want, whether they will or not, then it follows inexorably that you must make them afraid of what will happen to them if they don’t do what you want.

No one is more truly helpless, more completely a victim, than he who can neither choose nor change nor escape his protectors.

It is not just power, but impotence, that corrupts people. It gives them the mind and soul of slaves. It makes them indifferent, lazy, cynical, irresponsible, and, above all, stupid.