Demosthenes: “I never advise we should give to idlers the wages of the diligent, or sit at leisure, passive and helpless, to hear that…”

For I have been taught both by hearsay and experience, that most of your advantages have escaped you, from unwillingness to do your duty, not from ignorance.

I trust only, that what is most for the common benefit will prevail.

Wherefore, Athenians, we must be exceedingly careful of our future measures, that by amendment therein we may efface the shame of the past.

For, had they undertaken the war at your instance, they might have been slippery allies, with minds but half resolved perhaps: but since they hate him on a quarrel of their own, their enmity is like to endure on account of their fears and…