I say not, however, that you should invite the rest without adopting measures to protect yourselves: it would be folly, while you sacrifice your own interest, to profess a regard for that of strangers, or to alarm others about the future, while for the present you are unconcerned.
From a speech urging Athenians to take action against Philip, on the importance of self-preservation and strategic priorities.
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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…
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.
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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