Quotes & Sayings About Athenian Democracy
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Top Athenian Democracy Quotes
Crucial element of Greek education. In the city-state of Sparta, the most extreme example of this focus, young boys considered weak at birth were abandoned to die. The rest were sent to grueling boot camps, where they were toughened into Spartan soldiers from an early age. Around the fifth century BC, some Greek city-states, most notably Athens, began to experiment with a new form of government. "Our constitution is called a democracy," the Athenian statesman Pericles noted in his funeral oration, "because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the — Fareed Zakaria
He was as absurd as an Athenian demagogue, about whom Dr Faure had that morning been characteristically rude, since they were foreign, given to unnatural vices, and favoured democracy. Being thirteen, it was the unnatural vices that interested us. — Jonathan Grimwood
We honor the Greeks because in their art, literature, philosophy and civic history we discern the early stirrings of our own ideals - rationalism, humanism, democracy - which first took firm root in Athenian soil. — Caroline Alexander
Pacifists are reluctant to remember this, but early on the ancient Greeks invented democracy as a continuation of war by other means. The assembly practice on the scale of the citystate came directly from the assembly of warriors. Equality of speech stemmed from equality in the face of death. Athenian democracy was a hoplitic democracy. One was a citizen because one was a soldier - hence the exclusion of women and slaves. In a culture as violently agonistic as classical Greek culture, debate itself was understood as a moment of warlike confrontation, between citizens this time, in the sphere of speech, with the arms of persuasion.Moreover, "agon" signifies "assembly" as much as "competition. " The complete Greek citizen was one who was victorious both with arms and with discourse. — Anonymous
But wars - or the threat of war - at least put an end to American chattel slavery, Nazism, Fascism, Japanese militarism, and Soviet Communism. It is hard to think of any democracy - Afghan, American, Athenian, contemporary German, Iraqi, Italian, Japanese, ancient Theban - that was not an outcome of armed struggle and war. — Victor Davis Hanson
The Athenian democracy suffered much from that narrowness of patriotism which is the ruin of all nations. — H.G.Wells
In practice, Athenian democracy was very limited. There were twice as many slaves as citizens, and no woman or foreigner had citizenship rights. But for those who were included, this nascent democracy had extraordinary implications, undercutting the ability of aristocratic families to build and maintain their private power bases. — Stephanie Coontz