On the Chersonese

Demosthenes

Demosthenes. Vol. I. Olynthiacs, Philippics, Minor Public Speeches, Speech Against Leptines, I-XVII, XX. Vince, J. H., translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930 (printing).

No, against our enemies, who are not amenable to the laws, it is right and necessary to maintain troops, to send out fleets, and to raise funds; but against ourselves we have these resources, a decree, an impeachment, and a dispatch-boat. Those are what right-minded citizens would employ; malignants, bent on the ruin of the State, would do as these men are doing.

And that there are some men of this type among you, though bad enough, is not the real evil; but you who sit here are by now in such a mood that if anyone comes forward and asserts that the cause of all our evil is Diopithes or Chares or Aristophon, or any other citizen that he happens to name, you at once agree and applaud the truth of the remark.