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Pericles: “In Praise of Athens” In 431 BC, at end of the first years of a war against Sparta, the Athenian leader, Pericles, delivered a speech to honor the soldiers who had been killed in battle. The following are excerpts from that speech: No other form of government rivals our own institutions. We have not copied the governments of our neighbors, but rather, have set an example for them. We are called a democracy because the power to makes laws is given to many rather than a few. While every citizen has an equal opportunity to serve the public, we reward our most distinguished citizens by asking them to make our political decisions. Nor do we discriminate against the poor. A man may serve his country no matter how low his position on the social scale. We do not allow secrecy in our public affairs… Our military training is also superior to that of our enemies in many respects. Our city is thrown open to the world. We have never expelled a foreigner nor prevented him from seeing or learning anything that might help him defeat us if he became our enemy. An Athenian citizen does not put his private affairs before the affairs of the state; even our merchants and businessmen know something about politics. If a man take no interest in public affairs he is not harmless – he is useless. We think before we act, but we do not allow thinking to interfere with acting. Other Famous Quotes by Pericles “We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.” “When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone us equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.”