In the western world today everyone is a democrat.

Historical explanation is not identical with moral judgment.

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.

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.

man is by nature designed to live in the polis, the highest form of koinonia, community; that is man's end or goal if he achieves the full potentiality of his nature.

Knowledge for its own sake was meaningless, its mere accumulation a waste of time. Knowledge must lead to understanding.

Ideal goals are a menace in themselves, as much in more modern philosophers as in Plato.