Political Quotes

Demosthenes: “Still under these indignities we are all slack and disheartened, and look toward our neighbors, distrusting one another…”

On the recordc. 349 BC
Still under these indignities we are all slack and disheartened, and look toward our neighbors, distrusting one another, instead of the common enemy.
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Demosthenes

Editor's note · Context

From a speech urging Athenians to resist Philip, on the internal divisions and lack of resolve among the Greek states.

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If we admitted the truth of what would be your best possible answer, namely, that all you do is for honor and renown, I wonder what puts it into your head, that you ought from such motives to exert yourself and undergo toil and danger…

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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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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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