We must consider not only why the classical theory of democracy appears to be in contradiction with the observed practice, but also why the many different responses to this observation, though mutually incompatible, all share the belief that democracy is the best form of political organization.

A genuinely political society, in which discussion and debate are an essential technique, is a society full of risks.

In the western world today everyone is a democrat.

What I am arguing, in effect, is that the full democratic system of the second half of the fifth century B.C. would not have been introduced had there been no Athenian empire.

If I had to choose one which best characterized the condition of being a political leader in Athens, the word would be "tension".

Political leaders, lacking documents that could be kept secret (apart from the occasional exception), lacking media they could control, were of necessity brought into a direct and immediate relationship with their constituents, and therefore under more and direct and immediate control.

It is a mark of civilised man that he seeks to understand his traditions, and to criticise them, not to swallow them whole.