Demosthenes Quotes will provide you with much-needed insight into life.
For the unversed, he was a Greek statesman and orator.
Demosthenes occupied a central place during the 4th century BC in Ancient Athens.
His orations are still remembered to this day and constitute the significant expression and acuities on political and cultural issues of Greece.
Underneath is a collection of 51 Best Demosthenes Quotes. Read and enjoy!
Table of Contents
Demosthenes Quotes
Demosthenes Quotes
1- “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.”
2- “Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”
3- “All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.”
4- “Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.”
5- “You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man’s actions are, such must be his spirit.”
6- “Was man wünscht, das glaubt auch jeder.”
7- “Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.”
8- “Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.”
9- “Nothing is easier than self-deceit.
For what every man wishes,
that he also believes to be true.”
10- “Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states.”
Demosthenes Quotes
11- “I am a citizen of the world.”
12- “What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice.”
13- “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.”
14- “What we wish, that we readily believe.”
15- “Virtue begins with understanding and is fulfilled by courage.”
16- “No man who is not willing to help himself has any right to apply to his friends, or to the gods.”
17- “A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.”
18- “To remind a man of the good turns you have done him is very much like a reproach.”
19- “There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots – suspicion.”
20- “What a man wishes he generally believes to be true.”
Demosthenes Quotes
21- “Close alliances with despots are never safe for free states.”
22- “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.”
23- “The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves.”
24- “The best protection for the people is not necessarily to believe everything people tell them.”
25- “Everything great is not always good, but all good things, are great.”
26- “Clouds cannot cover secret places, nor denials conceal truth.”
27- “It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery. These may, perhaps, succeed for once, and borrow for awhile, from hope, a gay and flourishing appearance. But time betrays their weakness, and they fall into ruin of themselves. For, as in structures of every kind, the lower parts should have the greatest firmness–so the grounds and principles of actions should be just and true.”
28- “Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.”
29- “One believes in what one wants to believe in.”
30- “By persistent labor man may attain to all excellence.”
Demosthenes Quotes
31- “The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once.”
32- “The fact speak for themselves.”
33- “There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection and preservation of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches, and the like… But prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all, and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies. What is this safeguard? Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep this, you need fear no harm.”
34- “Nothing is easier than self-deceit.”
35- “The man who is in the highest state of prosperity, and who thinks his fortune is most secure, knows not if it will remain unchanged till the evening.”
36- “Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe; but such expectations are often inconsistent with the real state of things.”
37- “It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery.”
38- “You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man’s actions are, such must be his spirit.”
39- “The sower of the seed is assuredly the author of the whole harvest of mischief.”
40- “Do you remember that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, “How well he spoke” but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, “Let us march.”
Demosthenes Quotes
41- “To remind a man of the good turns you have done him is very much like a reproach.”
42- “For a house, I take it, or a ship or anything of that sort must have its chief strength in its substructure; and so too in affairs of state the principles and the foundations must be truth and justice.”
43- “Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.”
44- “Whatever shall be to the advantage of all, may that prevail!”
45- “It is impossible for men engaged in low and groveling pursuits to have noble and generous sentiments. A man’s thought must always follow his employment.”
46- “The more able a man is, if he make ill use of his abilities, the more dangerous will he be to the commonwealth.”
47- “We need money, for sure, Athenians, and without money nothing can be done that ought to be done.”
48- “Good fortune is the greatest of blessings, but good counsel comes next, and the lack of it destroys the other also.”
49- “The man who flies shall fight again. [Lat., Qui fugiebat, rusus praeliabitur.]”
50- “The end of wisdom is consultation and deliberation.”
Demosthenes Quotes
51- “The most noble title any child can have is Third.”
Conclusion
This article presents to you all the quotes by the great orator Demosthenes.
I hope you will take benefit from this piece of ours.
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