Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1552
AUTHOR:
Thucydides (c. 460–c. 400 B.C.)
QUOTATION:
An Athenian citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care of his own household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless character, and if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of a policy.
ATTRIBUTION:
THUCYDIDES, “Funeral Speech of Pericles,” book 2, section 40.—Thucydides Translated into English, 2d ed., trans. Benjamin Jowett, vol. 1, pp. 129–30 (1900).
