ɸιλοκαλο⋯μέν τε γ⋯ρ μετ' εὐτελείας κα⋯ ɸιλοσοɸο⋯μεν ἄνευ μαλακίαας. πλούτῳ τε ἔργου μ⋯λλον καιῷ ἢ λόγου κόμπῳ χρώμεθα, κα⋯ τ⋯ πένεσθαι οὐχ ⋯μολοσεῖν τιν⋯ αἰσχρόν, ⋯λλ⋯ μ⋯ διαɸεύγειν ἔργῳ αἴσχιον ἔνι τε τοῖς αὐτοῖς οἰκείων ἄμα κα⋯ πολιτικ⋯ν ⋯πιμέλεια, κα⋯ ⋯τέροις πρ⋯ς ἔργα τετραμμένοις τ⋯ πολιτικ⋯ μ⋯ ⋯νδε⋯ς γν⋯ναι.
J. Kakridis has seen in this famous passage a reflection of the popular debate, conducted most memorably by Amphion and Zethus in Euripides' Antiope and Callicles and Socrates in Plato's Gorgias, over the respective merits of the vita activa and vita contemplativa. Normally the intellectual is faulted as lazy and helpless, the politician as an ignorant busybody; yet Pericles, according to Kakridis, claims that Athenians avoid these faults and combine the traits of both lives at their best.
This interpretation accords well with the idealism of the funeral oration, but it falters over what Pericles places between philosophy and politics, viz.πλο⋯τος. Kakridis must struggle to account for the transition directly from philosophy to wealth, on the assumption that πλούτῳ τε…χρώμεθα serves to amplify ἄνευ μαλακίας, while ἔνιτε…⋯πιμέλεια extends the description of the non-intellectual life from the private sphere of trade to the public one of politics (pp. 50–1).