Historical explanation is not identical with moral judgment.

Perhaps the best known, and certainly the most vaunted, "discovery" of modern public opinion research is the indifference and ignorance of a majority of the electorate in western democracies.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

In the western world today everyone is a democrat.

One suffers in silence so long as one has the strength and when that strength fails one speaks without measuring one's words much.

The most baffling about the human psyche is that even after seeing the misery and suffering all around. He is convinced that these would befall only to others and not on to him.

Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself is a good thing to do. You may be a fool but you're the fool in charge.

The thought of money and fame and all that is nice to have. But it's not what's really important.

I don't want to think of life after competing. But if I were to do anything else I'd go down the psychology route. That's what interests me.

I can be a champion and a public servant also.

Service... Giving what you don't have to give. Giving when you don't need to give. Giving because you want to give.

Happy, not from anything that happens. Warm, not from fire or a hot bath. Light, I register zero on a scale.

Know how to win and how to lose and be able to handle adversity.

I don't believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I have changed government policy solely because of a contribution.