Pericles

Wealth is with us rather an opportunity for action than a subject for boasting.

We are a city open to the world, and we never expel a foreigner from our midst.

For where the awards for virtue are the greatest, there the best citizens are found.

I am of the opinion that we ought not to give way to the Peloponnesians, but to maintain our own course.

We do not make our friends by receiving favors, but by conferring them.

For what is honored is that which is useful.

We are not only admirable at home, but also abroad.

For the greatest glory is to be spoken of for one's virtues.

For we are a model to others, not imitators.

The city is more powerful than the individual.

For a man may be rich and yet be useful to the state, or he may be poor and yet be useful.

For we have not acquired our power by force, but by justice.

For the greatest penalty for not engaging in politics is to be governed by inferiors.

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.

For we are a city that is open to the world, and we never expel a foreigner from our midst, nor do we prevent anyone from learning or seeing anything, provided that by so doing he does not harm the state.

We place our trust not in preparations and stratagems, but in our own native courage.

For we are the only people who deem him that takes no part in public business not as unambitious but as useless.

For the love of honor is the only thing that does not grow old, and in old age it is not wealth, but honor, that gives us joy.

We are free and open in our political life, and in our social relations we are not suspicious of one another.

Indeed, if I have any superiority, it is this: that I am better able than others to discern what is to be done, and to explain it.