"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."

Moses I. Finley Economics See all quotes by Moses I. Finley →

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

“for it is conflict combined with consent, not consent alone, which preserves democracy from eroding into oligarchy.”

“In the western world today everyone is a democrat.”

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

“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.”

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

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