It is folly and cowardice to cherish such hopes, and, while you take evil counsel and shirk every duty, and even listen to those who plead for your enemies, to think you inhabit a city of such magnitude, that you can not suffer any serious misfortune.
In a speech warning Athenians against complacency, Demosthenes condemns the folly of believing a great city is immune to misfortune despite poor leadership and inaction.
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You can not surely allege, that Aristodemus ought to be of importance at Athens, and Athens to be of no account among the Greeks.
Because our city is the only one where liberty is allowed to speak for the enemy, where a man taking a bribe may safely address the people, though they have been deprived of their possessions.
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.
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.
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