Exordia

And I should like to have you bear patiently with the speeches of both sides to this end, if for no other, in order that, if someone shall be found to offer a proposal better than those upon which you are intent, you may avail yourselves of it, but, if he falls short and is unable to make his point, that he may seem to have suffered this repulse through his own fault and not because of your refusing to listen. Furthermore, your experience would not be so disagreeable if you should listen to some fool making a long speech as it would if you prevented a man from speaking who had something timely to propose.

In all matters, of course, the first step toward right judgement is never to imagine you understand before learning, especially knowing as you do that many men before now have often changed their minds. If, then, you on your part are now convinced of these truths, I think that I on my part shall seem justified in speaking briefly in opposition and be found to propose the plans that are best for you.

Although many speeches have been made, men of Athens, by all your counsellors, I do not see that you are now any nearer to discovering what ought to be done than before you came up to the Assembly. The cause of this, in my opinion, is the same as the cause of the wretched plight of our affairs in general, that the speakers do not offer advice about the business before you, but accuse and revile one another, accustoming you, in my judgement, to hearing, without process of law, all the mischief of which they are the cause, in order that if, after all, they do come to face the test some day, you, thinking you are hearing nothing new, but only the charges over which you have often been angry, may so become more merciful jurors and judges of their misdeeds.