History of the Peloponnesian War

And the way to hurt an enemy most is to know certainly what he most feareth and to bring the same upon him. For in reason a man therefore feareth a thing most as having the precisest knowledge of what will most hurt him. As for the commodities which yourselves shall reap and deprive the enemy of by so fortifying, letting much pass, I will sum you up the principal. Whatsoever the territory is furnished withal will come most of it unto you, partly taken and partly of its own accord.

The revenue of the silver mines in Laurium and whatsoever other profit they have from their land or from their courts of justice will presently be lost; and, which is worse, their confederates will be remiss in bringing in their revenue and will care little for the Athenians if they believe once that you follow the war to the utmost. That any of these things be put in act speedily and earnestly, men of Lacedaemon, it resteth only in yourselves; for I am confident, and I think I err not, that all these things are possible to be done.

Now I must crave this: that I be neither the worse esteemed for that, having once been thought a lover of my country, I go now amongst the greatest enemies of the same against it, nor yet mistrusted as one that speaketh with the zeal of a fugitive.

For though I fly from the malice of them that drave me out, I shall not, if you take my counsel, fly your profit.

Nor are you enemies so much, who have hurt but your enemies, as they are that have made enemies of friends. I love not my country as wronged by it, but as having lived in safety in it.

Nor do I think that I do herein go against any country of mine, but that I far rather seek to recover the country I have not. And he is truly a lover of his country not that refuseth to invade the country he hath wrongfully lost, but that desires so much to be in it as by any means he can he will attempt to recover it.