For a man's counsel cannot have equal weight or worth, when he alone has no children to risk in the general danger.
Interpretation
A person's advice lacks value if they do not share in the risks and responsibilities of others.
In this quote, Pericles highlights the importance of shared experiences and responsibilities when it comes to leadership and decision-making. He suggests that those who do not have personal stakes in the outcomes of their counsel—such as having children to protect—are less qualified to offer valuable advice, especially in matters that affect the community or society at large. This underscores the idea that true wisdom comes not only from knowledge but also from personal investment in the issues being addressed.
In practice
During a community meeting on education policy, you might quote Pericles to emphasize the need for leaders to consider the impact of their decisions on families.
For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.
Just because you are not interested in politics, does not mean that politics is not interested in you.
Famous men have the whole earth as their memorial.
Not to be able to bear poverty is a shameful thing, but not to know how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet.
Those who are politically apathetic can only survive if they are supported by people who are capable of taking action.
For the whole earth is the tomb of famous men; not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.
Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me - the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love - He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us - nature did it all - not the gods of the religions.
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
A religion is a source of happiness and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong--and you are strong. The great trouble with religion--any religion--is that the religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge these propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason--but one cannot have both.
I use both the 'I' and the 'we.' For on many, many matters, I am not simply expressing ideas that have happened to occur to Joseph Ratzinger, but I am speaking out of the common life of the Church's communion.
I think about never losing my voice, never giving in, never selling out, always keeping black, always sticking to the street. Staying neighborhood and not Hollywood.
An adulterer will not commit adultery when he has full faith (in Allah), and a thief will not steal when he has full faith (in Allah).
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