Demosthenes: “Their attempt to force an oligarchy upon every dependent state was an unwise policy, which made them generally odious.”

You can not surely allege, that Aristodemus ought to be of importance at Athens, and Athens to be of no account among the Greeks.

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…

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.

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.