The goal of a free nation is to reveal by example the enlightened possibilities of the human race, not to wield its power of destruction and death ov… - Gerry Spence

The goal of many educators, albeit unconfessed, is to condition our young, who are perfectly alive with perfect feelings, to become separated from their feelings, to repress them, to deaden them. The scheme of too many parents and too many teachers is to teach these perfect little living creatures the attitudes of the dead and to instill in them the virtue of death, which is, of course, to be perfectly still, as if in the graveyard, perfectly silent, as if in the tomb, for the dead exhibit the most exemplary behavior. The dead never speak up or cause trouble. I say too many teachers and too many parents love the dead more than the living. But death comes soon enough. Death ought not be imposed upon our young before their time.

It is clear that we require power. But the power we need is our own. The power exhibited in the winning argument may not be overtly powerful at all, for power may be experienced as gentleness, as compassion, as love, as humility, as sensitivity. We have come to understand that even sounds we thought powerful — the harsh voice of authority, the demanding dictates of the bully — are not sounds of power but the wretched noise of the insecure. We have come to understand that the application of excessive power often conceals cowardice or grave personality defects, that power is often useless to achieve what we want — to gain love or respect or success. And we have learned that power is deceptive, that at times there is no one more powerful than the powerless. So it has been throughout history. The Rockys have always been more powerful than the Apollo Creeds. The meek, unsullied by power, shall indeed inherit the earth.

Maturity and death are cousins.