On the Chersonese

But if anyone rises and tells you the real truth and says, Nonsense, Athenians! The cause of all these evils and all these troubles is Philip, for if he had kept quiet, our city would have been free from trouble, you cannot gainsay it, but you seem to me to be vexed and to feel that you are, as it were, losing something.

But as to the reason for this—and in Heaven’s name, when I am pleading for your best interests, allow me to speak freely—some of our politicians have been training you to be threatening and intractable in the meetings of the Assembly, but in preparing for war, careless and contemptible. If, then, the culprit named is someone on whom you know you can lay hands in Athens, you agree and assent; but if it is someone whom you cannot chastise unless you overcome him by force of arms, you find yourselves helpless, I suppose, and to be proved so causes you annoyance.