Exordia

As for the problems now confronting the State, men of Athens, even though things are not as they should be, I do not consider it altogether difficult to discover by what action one may effect an improvement. I judge, on the other hand, that the manner in which I must speak to you about them means very grave irritation; not because you will fail to understand what a person will say but because you seem to me to have become so accustomed to hearing many untruths and anything rather than what best meets your needs, that I fear it may be the lot of the man who now makes the best proposal to earn for his reward at your hands the hostility which would properly have been the due of those who have deceived you.

For I observe that often you hate, not those who are to blame for your troubles, but those who have most recently made mention of them to you.[*](Cf. Dem. 1.16.) Nevertheless, although I am so precisely measuring this hazard, I still think that I must put all other subjects aside and confine myself to saying what I think is the best advice about the present situation.