A variety of circumstances may have brought us to this state; our affairs have not declined from one or two causes only; but, if you rightly examine, you will find it chiefly owing to the orators, who study to please you rather than advise for the best.
Addressing the Athenian assembly, Demosthenes explains the primary cause of their national decline as the influence of flattering rather than honest orators.
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For the riches of a state I consider to be allies, confidence, good-will; of all which you are destitute.
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.
I say, you must either desist from these practices, or blame none but yourselves for the wretched condition of your affairs.
You can not surely allege, that Aristodemus ought to be of importance at Athens, and Athens to be of no account among the Greeks.
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