When Philip is preparing, you, instead of doing the like and making counter-preparation, remain listless, and, if any one speaks a word, clamor him down: when you receive news that any place is lost or besieged, then you listen and prepare.
Demosthenes criticizes the Athenians' tendency to delay preparations against Philip until a crisis has already occurred.
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For the riches of a state I consider to be allies, confidence, good-will; of all which you are destitute.
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.
I say, you must either desist from these practices, or blame none but yourselves for the wretched condition of your affairs.
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.
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