Sunday, July 05, 2020

A Few Words From...Demosthenes

"Virtue?  You runnagate; what have you or your family to do with virtue?  How do you distinguish between good and evil report?  Where and how did you qualify as a  moralist?  Where did you get your right to talk about education?  No really educated man would use such language about himself, but would rather blush to hear it from others; but people like you, who make stupid pretensions to the culture of which they are utterly destitute, succeed in disgusting everybody whenever they open their lips, but never in making the impression they desire" - "On The Crown", 330 B.C.

"...that a democracy is the most unstable and capricious thing in the world, like a restless wave of the sea ruffled by the breeze as chance will have it.  One man comes, another goes; no one attends to, or even remembers, the common weal." - "On The Embassy", 343 B.C.


(Demosthenes Practicing Oratory, Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouy)




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