On the recordc. 349 BC
If such be your disposition now, I must be silent: if you will listen to good advice without flattery, I am ready to speak.
Said by
Demosthenes
Source
gutenberg.orgDemosthenes: “If such be your disposition now, I must be silent: if you will listen to good advice without flattery, I am ready to…”
Editor's note · Context
Demosthenes challenges the Athenian assembly, stating his willingness to speak only if they are prepared to hear unvarnished advice rather than flattery.
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More from Demosthenes
c. 349 BC
But I suppose, you inherit a reputation from your father and grandfather, which it were disgraceful in your own person to extinguish, whereas the ancestry of the state was ignoble and mean.
c. 349 BC
They say that you should keep quiet, though you are injured; but they can not themselves keep quiet among you, though no one injures them.
c. 349 BC
He is convinced, you will not submit to be slaves; if you were inclined, you would not know how, having been accustomed to command: you will be able, should occasion offer, to give him more trouble than any people in the world.
c. 349 BC
Such is the truth, spoken with perfect freedom, purely from good-will and for the best: not a speech fraught with flattery and mischief and deceit, to earn money for the speaker, and to put the commonwealth into the hands of our enemies.
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