Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is 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.
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"Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time."
"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."
"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 st…"
"We do not copy our neighbors, but are an example to them."
"For we are a democracy, and our laws are equal to all alike in their private disputes, but in public, we are ruled by the will of the majority."
From Thucydides' 'History of the Peloponnesian War', Pericles' Funeral Oration. While often celebrated, the emphasis on 'ability' over 'class' could be seen as a subtle justification for meritocratic rule within a democracy, potentially divisive among those who valued traditional aristocratic privilege, or those who felt excluded despite their ability.
Date: 431 BC (approximate, as recorded by Thucydides)
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