for when a man has superior talents whether for speech or for action, one cannot fairly charge it to anything but fortune, but when a man makes good and temperate use of the power which nature has given him, as in my own case, all the world ought in justice to commend his character. However, though I might advance this argument in my behalf, I shall never be found to have had anything to do with speeches for the courts.See General Introd. p. xx.

You can judge this from my habits of life, from which, indeed, you can get at the truth much better than from the lips of my accusers; for no one is, I think, blind to the fact that all people are wont to spend their time in the places where they elect to gain their livelihood.

And you will observe that those who live upon your contracts and the litigation connected with them are all but domiciled in the courts of law, while no one has ever seen me either at the council-board,The SUNE/DRION, a board made up of the six junior archons called Thesmothetae, had jurisdiction over a large number of offenses against the state. or at the preliminaries,The A)NA/KRISIS was any preliminary hearing before an appropriate magistrate. or in the courts,The regular Heliastic jury-panels. See Isoc. 7.54, note. or before the arbitratorsCf. Isoc. 15.27, note.; on the contrary, I have kept aloof from all these more than any of my fellow-citizens.