Moses Finley Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

Historical explanation is not identical with moral judgment.

In the western world today everyone is a democrat.