10 Quotes by Moses Finley

Historical explanation is not identical with moral judgment.

It is a mark of civilised man that he seeks to understand his traditions, and to criticise them, not to swallow them whole.

Knowledge for its own sake was meaningless, its mere accumulation a waste of time. Knowledge must lead to understanding.

We must consider not only why the classical theory of democracy appears to be in contradiction with the observed practice, but also why the many different responses to this observation, though mutually incompatible, all share the belief that democracy is the best form of political organization.

Faction is the greatest evil and the most common danger. “Faction” is the conventional English translation of the Greek stasis, one of the most remarkable words to be found in any language.

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

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.

In the western world today everyone is a democrat.