Demosthenes: “My promise indeed is large; it shall be tested by the performance; and you shall be my judges.”

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.

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.

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…