Demosthenes: “And it seems, men of Athens, as if some god, ashamed for us at our proceedings, has put this activity into Philip.”

Yea, among these men, some have risen rapidly from poverty to wealth, from meanness and obscurity to repute and honor, while you, on the contrary, have fallen from honor to obscurity, from wealth to indigence.

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.

For this reason he will show us no mercy, if he get us into his power: and therefore you must make up your minds, that the struggle will be one for life and death.

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.