History of the Peloponnesian War

For the spirit is enslaved by what is sudden and unlooked for, and most beyond our calculation; which has been your case, in addition to every thing else, more especially with regard to the plague.

Living, however, as you do in a great city, and brought up with habits corresponding to it, you ought to be willing to encounter the greatest misfortunes, and not to sully your reputation; (for men think it equally just to find fault with him who weakly falls short of his proper character, and to hate him who rashly grasps at that which does not belong to him;) and you ought to cease grieving for your private sufferings, and to devote yourselves to the safety of the commonwealth.

"But with regard to your trouble in the war, lest you should fear that it may prove great, and we may still be none the more successful, let those arguments suffice you, with which on many other occasions I have proved the error of your suspicions respecting it. At the same time, I will also lay before you the following advantage, which yourselves do not appear ever yet to have thought of as belonging to you, respecting the greatness of your empire, and which I never urged in my former speeches; nor would I even now, as it has rather too boastful an air, if I did not see you unreasonably cast down.