Our constitution is named a democracy, because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. But our laws secure equal justice for all in their private disputes, and our public opinion welcomes and honors talent in every branch of achievement, not for any sectional reason but on grounds of excellence alone. And as we give free play to all in our public life, so we care the same spirit into our daily relations with one another... Open and friendly in our private intercourse, in our public acts we keep strictly within the control of law. We acknowledge the restraint of authority, and to the laws, more especially to those which offer protection to the oppressed and those unwritten ordinances whose transgression brings admitted shame.
Quoted in Funeral Oration, by Thucydides
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Original Citation
Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War. c. 431 BC, bk. 2.
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Current Citation
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War, translated by Martin Hammond. Oxford University Press, 2009, bk. 2.
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