Shakespeare's wisdom

We watched the movie "As You Like It" tonight. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, as the actors were really good and the casting was surprising. (Ok, I'll admit I was a little thrown off at first by the black guy being the master of the white old man servant-yes, I can own my stereotypes, recognize them and move on.) There was a line that really intrigued me- Orlando is starving in the forest, and approaches the banished Duke wielding a sword in order to steal his camp's food. Duke Senior declares "Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to gentleness". I can think of so many applications for this proverb in the world right now: U.S. diplomacy with the world, some of the unhappy married folks that I know, and in my discipline with the children. A woman that I worked for a few years ago, Maureen Simon, believes that the world has tilted into an unbalanced state of more male energy than female, and the imbalance is leading to more wars, power struggles, unhappiness in the world etc. Ok, I may have simplified that a little, but I think it applies here as well. Certainly a little more gentleness and a little less force would make the world a better place. Now if we could only get Bin Laden and Bush to buy into that....