Demosthenes

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit.

Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master

Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.

A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.

Nothing is so easy as to deceive oneself; for what we wish, we readily believe.

Close alliances with despots are never safe for free states.

The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves.

The best protection for the people is not necessarily to believe everything people tell them.

Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.

There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots - suspicion.