Demosthenes Quotes

Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.

Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states.

The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves.

To remind a man of the good turns you have done him is very much like a reproach.

What we wish, that we readily believe.

I am a citizen of the world.

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.

Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what every man wishes, that he also beleives to be true.

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.

A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.

All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.

The best protection for the people is not necessarily to believe everything people tell them.