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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我们没有抄袭邻国的政治制度。我们不是模仿者，相反，我们是别人的楷模。我们的政府造福于大多数人，而不是为少数人谋利，这就是人们称其为民主政府的原因。解决私人争执时，每个人在法律上是平等的；从社会地位来看，在公众事务中获得晋升的基础是能力而不是虚名，既不能让阶级地位贬低人们的价值，也不能让贫困阻挡人们前进的道路；有能力为国家服务的人，不应该因地位卑微而受妨碍。政府生活中能享受的自由，也同样适用于日常生活。我们非但不为嫉妒而相互监视，也不会因邻居随心所欲而发怒；甚至不会纵容自己面露不快，尽管这种脸色不会造成实在的损伤，却着实令人讨厌。但是这种个人交往中的随和，并不会使我们成为无法无天的公民。正是害怕这种情况的发生，反而让我们有了法律的最高保障。它教导我们服从执法机构和法律，尤其是关于保护受害人的法律，不管这些法律是否确实载入了法典。即使这些法律没有明文规定，但你一旦触犯，就将成为公认的耻辱。