For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago and done no good either to you or to myself.
athensquotes
I do not know, men of Athens, how my accusers affected you; as for me, I was almost carried away in spite of myself, so persuasively did they speak. And yet, hardly anything of what they said is true.
Men of Athens, I honor and I love you, but I will obey the god rather than you and as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall not cease to practice philosophy, to exhort you and in my usual way to point out to any one of you whom I happen to meet.
The fact that it took the rise of democracies and otherwise open societies at Athens and elsewhere to create the climate in which public eloquence became a political indispensability.
