If we turn to our military policy， there also we differ from our antagonists. We throw open our city to the world， and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing， although the eyes of any enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality； trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of our citizens； while in education， where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness at Athens we live exactly as we please， and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger. In proof of this it may be noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone， but bring with them all their confederates； while we Athenians advance unsupported into the territory of a neighbor， and fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their homes. Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy， because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our citizens by land upon a hundred different services； so that， wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength， a success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the nation， and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of the entire people. And yet if with habits not of labor but of ease， and courage not of art but of nature we are still willing to encounter danger we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as fearlessly as those who are never free from them.
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我們沒有抄襲鄰國的政治製度。我們不是模仿者，相反，我們是別人的楷模。我們的政府造福於大多數人，而不是為少數人謀利，這就是人們稱其為民主政府的原因。解決私人爭執時，每個人在法律上是平等的；從社會地位來看，在公眾事務中獲得晉升的基礎是能力而不是虛名，既不能讓階級地位貶低人們的價值，也不能讓貧困阻擋人們前進的道路；有能力為國家服務的人，不應該因地位卑微而受妨礙。政府生活中能享受的自由，也同樣適用於日常生活。我們非但不為嫉妒而相互監視，也不會因鄰居隨心所欲而發怒；甚至不會縱容自己麵露不快，盡管這種臉色不會造成實在的損傷，卻著實令人討厭。但是這種個人交往中的隨和，並不會使我們成為無法無天的公民。正是害怕這種情況的發生，反而讓我們有了法律的最高保障。它教導我們服從執法機構和法律，尤其是關於保護受害人的法律，不管這些法律是否確實載入了法典。即使這些法律沒有明文規定，但你一旦觸犯，就將成為公認的恥辱。