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

Faction is the greatest evil and the most common danger. "Faction" is the conventional English translation of the Greek stasis, one of the most remarkable words to be found in any language.

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.

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

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

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