Quotes from Gerry Spence

When any system has for its goal the advancement of the system over the betterment of its individual members, such a system is embedded in slavery.

The best antidote for crime is justice. The irony we often fail to appreciate is that the more justice people enjoy, the fewer crimes they commit. Crime is the natural offspring of an unjust society.

The erosion of a nation's concern for life and for individual rights, has always preceded the intrusion of tyranny.

How much of our lives could we buy back if we cherished our lives instead of our trinkets?

The art of arguing is the art of living. We argue because we must, because life emends it, because, in the end, life itself is but an argument.

We are afraid. But fear confirms life and identifies the source of every successful argument - ourselves.

The function of the law is not to provide justice or to preserve freedom. The function of the law is to keep those who hold power, in power.

To freely bloom - that is my definition of success.

To freely bloom that is my definition of success. The question then is, How does arguing with our children advance our goal that our children freely bloom.

The less of one's life one must exchange for money, the more freedom one may enjoy.

Government [is] operated by deeply embedded, hopelessly entangled bureaus where nothing is accomplished because the function of the bureau is to intercept every living idea and smother it.

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.

Children, as persons, are entitled to the greatest respect. Children are given to us as free-flying souls, but then we clip their wings like we domesticate the wild mallard. Children should become the role-models for us, their parents, for they are coated with the spirit from which they came- out of the ether, clean, innocent, brimming with the delight of life, aware of the beauty of the simplest thing; a snail, a bud....

Skepticism, not cleanliness, is next to godliness. Skepticism is the father of freedom. It is like the pry that holds open the door for truth to slip in.

The true test of liberty is the right to test it, the right to question it, the right to speak to my neighbors, to grab them by the shoulders and look into their eyes and ask, "Are we free?" I have thought that if we are free, the answer cannot hurt us. And if we are not free, must we not hear the answer?

Love is how we feel toward those who show us that which is lovable about ourselves.

There are innumerable ways to murder a person, but the most subtle and pernicious of these is to mutilate the soul of the innocent by denying or downgrading their uniqueness and their beauty.

The old saw that sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me does not, in fact, hold true.

Fear is like a pack of dogs – it chases us, and if we try to run or hide from it the dogs will continue our chase until finally, exhausted, we fall and are devoured.

The operational word in every competent defense is attack. If you're explaining and defending, you're losing.

The chief reason [Bill] O'Reilly is a conservative is that like all conservatives he offers no solutions for the major issues confronting those he pretends to champion--such as better wages, workable health insurance, education for every deserving child, controls on the corporate thugs that are destroying our earth, an unfettered national voice for the ordinary citizen, reform of the election laws of this country that permitted corporations to own the country and enslave the people.

To excel in the art of domestic argument, one must master the art of losing.

We have been assembled and fabricated into well-behaved students, predictable consumers, and obedient citizens. Most of what is feral has been domesticated. We suffocate in an amorphous glob of sameness. We have learned it is better to conform than to be.

Maturity and death are cousins.