Demosthenes > Quotes

“Nothing is easier than self-deceit.
For what every man wishes,
that he also believes to be true.”
― Demosthenes

“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”
― Demosthenes

“Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who are from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts, but brothers, not rivals, but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence...The difference... is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging.”
― Demosthenes

“As a vessel is known by its sound whether it be cracked or not, so men are proved by their speeches whether they be wise or foolish.”
― Demosthenes

“Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.”
― Demosthenes

“Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.”
― Demosthenes

“All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.”
― Demosthenes

“What a man wishes he generally believes to be true”
― Demosthenes

“Virtue begins with understanding and is fulfilled by courage.”
― Demosthenes

“Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each me wishes, that he also believes is true.”
― Demosthenes

“Was man wünscht, das glaubt auch jeder.”
― Demosthenes

“ὃ γάρ ἐστι χείριστον αὐτῶν ἐκ τοῦ παρεληλυθότος χρόνου, τοῦτο πρὸς τὰ μέλλοντα βέλτιστον ὑπάρχει.”
― Demosthenes

“I'll betide thee, say I, and may the Gods, or at least the Athenians, confound thee for a vile citizen and a vile third-rate actor! Read the evidence.”
― Demosthenes

“The Hippothoontidae bore in mind the marriage of Alope, from which Hippothoon was born, and they knew also who their founder was; about these matters—to avoid impropriety on an occasion like this I forbear to speak plainly*—they thought it was their duty to be seen performing deeds worthy of these ancestors.

* Alope’s son was said to have been twice exposed, and twice rescued and suckled by a mare. The use of mare’s milk as a food prevailed among the Scythians, as the Greeks knew well from their colonists in the region of the Black Sea, if not from Hdt. 4.2; Gylon, grandfather of Demosthenes, had lived in the Crimea and was said to have married a Thracian wife. The orator was sometimes twitted by his opponents about his Thracian blood. He may have been sensitive. Consequently the attitude here revealed might be construed as evidence for the genuineness of the speech.

(Funeral Speech section 31)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“The nobility of birth of these men has been acknowledged from time immemorial by all mankind. For it is possible for them and for each one of their remote ancestors man by man to trace back their being, not only to a physical father, but also to this land of theirs as a whole, a common possession, of which they are acknowledged to be the indigenous children. For alone of all mankind they settled the very land from which they were born and handed it down to their descendants, so that justly one may assume that those who came as migrants into their cities and are denominated citizens of the same are comparable to adopted children; but these men are citizens of their native land by right of legitimate birth.

(Funeral Speech section 4)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“[T]he fruits of the earth by which men live were first manifest among us*, even apart from their being a superlative boon to all men, constitutes an acknowledged proof that this land is the mother of our ancestors. For all things that bring forth young produce at the same time nutriment out of the organism itself for those that are born.

* According to tradition the olive was created by the goddess Athena, while the culture of grain, especially wheat and barley, was established by Demeter, whose mysteries were celebrated at Eleusis close to Athens.

(Funeral Speech section 5)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“Now, if it were my view that, of those qualities that constitute virtue, courage alone was their possession, I might praise this and be done with the speaking, but since it fell to their lot also to have been nobly born and strictly brought up and to have lived with lofty ideals, because of all which they had every reason to be good men, I should be ashamed if I were found to have passed over any of these topics.

(Funeral Speech section 3)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“For of all virtue, I say, and I repeat it, the beginning is understanding and the fulfillment is courage; by the one it is judged what ought to be done and by the other this is carried to success.

(Funeral Speech section 17)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“As for Courage and the other elements of virtue, I shrink from rehearsing the whole story, being on my guard for fear an untimely length shall attach to my speech , but such facts as it is worth while even for those who are familiar with them to recall to mind and most profitable for the inexperienced to hear, events of great power to inspire and calling for no tedious length of speech, these I shall endeavor to rehearse in summary fashion.
For the ancestors of this present generation, both their fathers and those who bore the names of these men in time past, by which they are recognized by those of our race, never at any time wronged any man, whether Greek or barbarian, but it was their pride, in addition to all their other good qualities, to be true gentlemen and supremely just, and in defending themselves they accomplished a long list of noble deeds.

(Funeral Speech section 6-7)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“Having been chosen, however, to extol these men in a speech, unless I have the sympathy of my hearers, I fear that because of my eagerness I may effect the very opposite of what I ought.

For wealth and speed of foot and strength of body and all other such things have their rewards self-assured to their possessors, and in those fields they win who have the luck, even if not one of the others wishes their success. On the other hand, the persuasiveness of words depends upon the goodwill of the hearers, and with the help of this, even if the eloquence be moderate, it reaps glory and gains favor, but lacking this help, even if it be surpassingly good, it is thwarted by those who hear.”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“I should not hesitate to assert that in my judgement the men who die at the post of duty on either side do not share the defeat but are both alike victors. For the mastery among the survivors is decided as the deity disposes, but that which each was in duty bound to contribute to this end, every man who has kept his post in battle has done. But if, as a mortal being, he meets his doom, what he has suffered is an incident caused by chance, but in spirit he remains unconquered by his opponents.

(Funeral Speech section 19)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“While it stands to reason that many influences helped to make them what they were, not least was their virtue ascribable to our form of government. For though absolute governments dominated by a few create fear in their citizens, they fail to awaken the sense of shame. Consequently, when the test of war comes, everyone lightheartedly proceeds to save himself, knowing full well that if only he succeeds in appeasing his masters by presents or any other civility whatsoever, even though he becomes guilty of the most revolting conduct, only slight reproach will attach to him thereafter.

Democracies, however, possess many other just and noble features, to which right-minded men should hold fast, and in particular it is impossible to deter freedom of speech, which depends upon speaking the truth, from exposing the truth. For neither is it possible for those who commit a shameful act to appease all the citizens*, so that even the lone individual, uttering the deserved reproach, makes the guilty wince: for even those who would never speak an accusing word themselves are pleased at hearing the same, provided another utters it. Through fear of such condemnation, all these men, as was to be expected, for shame at the thought of subsequent reproaches, manfully faced the threat arising from our foes and chose a noble death in preference to life and disgrace.

* Under an oligarchy, the speaker means, it is possible for the wrongdoer to seal the mouths of the small ruling clique by means of bribes, but under a democracy it is impossible to buy the silence of thousands of citizens. The reference is to oligarchic governments set up by the Spartans in subject states. Pericles praised the Athenian form of government as against the Spartan, Thuc. 2.37-39.

(Funeral Speech section 25-26)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“And though what I shall say next has been said before by many another, still even at this date those dead must not be deprived of their just and excellent praise. For I say that with good reason those men [participants of Greco-Persian Wars] might be judged so far superior to those who campaigned against Troy, that the latter, the foremost princes out of the whole of Greece, with difficulty captured a single stronghold of Asia after besieging it for ten years, whereas those men single-handed not only repulsed a host assembled from an entire continent, which had already subdued all other lands, but also inflicted punishment for the wrong done the rest of the Greeks. Furthermore, checking all acts of selfish aggrandisement among the Greeks themselves, assigning themselves to each station where justice was arrayed, they went on bearing the brunt of all dangers that chanced to arise until the lapse of time brings us to the generation now living.

(Funeral Speech section 10-11)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“Gli uomini per loro natura sono portati a disprezzare i deboli e lusingare i forti.”
― Demostene

“Having been chosen, however, to extol these men in a speech, unless I have the sympathy of my hearers, I fear that because of my eagerness I may effect the very opposite of what I ought.

For wealth and speed of foot and strength of body and all other such things have their rewards self-assured to their possessors, and in those fields they win who have the luck, even if not one of the others wishes their success. On the other hand, the persuasiveness of words depends upon the goodwill of the hearers, and with the help of this, even if the eloquence be moderate, it reaps glory and gains favor, but lacking this help, even if it be surpassingly good, it is thwarted by those who hear.

(Funeral Speech section 13-14)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“Furthermore, in contests of which the deity, the master of all, has disposed the outcome as it chose, it is necessary of course to acquit all others, being but human, of the charge of cowardice, but when it comes to the means by which the leader of our opponents prevailed over those appointed to the command of our army, no one could justly locate the cause in the rank and file of either the enemy or ourselves.

But if, after all, there is any human being who might rightly lay a charge concerning the issue of that battle, he would with good reason advance it against those of the Thebans* who were appointed to this command, nor could anyone rightly lay blame upon the rank and file of either the Thebans or ourselves.

* Philip seems to have deceived the Athenians by a feigned retreat while throwing his strongest troops against the Thebans. This stratagem broke the line and decided the battle. The Theban general Theagenes and his colleagues seem to have been no more to blame than the rest.

(Funeral Speech section 21-22)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“In the meantime it is necessary to interrupt my discourse for a moment, before declaring the deeds of these men, to solicit the goodwill of those born outside this race who have accompanied us to the tomb*.

* The welcome extended to aliens at the public funerals is mentioned in Thuc. 2.34.4. Pericles recognizes their presence, Thuc. 2.36.4.

(Funeral Speech section 13)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“Neither were the Aegeidae ignorant that Theseus, the son of Aegeus, for the first time established equality in the State.* They thought it, therefore, a dreadful thing to be false to the principles of that ancestor, and they preferred to be dead rather than through love of life to survive among the Greeks with this equality lost.

* According to Plut. Thes. 25, it was equality between newcomers and natives that Theseus established; the word ἰσονομία usually means equality before the law and is almost a synonym for democracy.

(Funeral Speech section 28)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“I began straightway to study how they might receive their due tribute of praise; but as I studied and searched my mind the conclusion forced itself upon me that to speak as these dead deserve was one of those things that cannot be done. For, since they scorned the love of life that is inborn in all men and chose rather to die nobly than to live and look upon Greece in misfortune, how can they have failed to leave behind them a record of valor surpassing all power of words to express?

(Funeral Speech section 1)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters

“I have recalled to mind the above-mentioned, each of which affords so many charming themes that our writers of poetry, whether recited or sung, and many historians, have made the deeds of those men the subjects of their respective arts; at the present time I shall mention the following deeds, which, though in point of merit they are no whit inferior to the former, still, through being closer in point of time, have not yet found their way into poetry or even been exalted to epic rank.

(Funeral Speech section 9)”
― Demosthenes, Funeral Speech, Erotic Essay 60-61, Exordia and Letters