Top 40 Demosthenes Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”

— Demosthenes

2. “Everything great is not always good, but all good things, are great.”

— Demosthenes

3. “The fact speak for themselves.”

— Demosthenes

4. “All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.”

— Demosthenes

5. “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.”

— Demosthenes

6. “No man who is not willing to help himself has any right to apply to his friends, or to the gods.”

— Demosthenes

7. “Virtue begins with understanding and is fulfilled by courage.”

— Demosthenes

8. “Clouds cannot cover secret places, nor denials conceal truth.”

— Demosthenes

9. “Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.”

— Demosthenes

10. “By persistent labor man may attain to all excellence.”

— Demosthenes

11. “What a man wishes, he will believe.”

— Demosthenes

12. “Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe; but such expectations are often inconsistent with the real state of things.”

— Demosthenes

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

— Demosthenes

14. “The end of wisdom is consultation and deliberation.”

— Demosthenes

15. “Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who are from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts, but brothers, not rivals, but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence... The difference... is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging.”

— Demosthenes

16. “Nothing is easier than self-deceit.”

— Demosthenes

17. “What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice.”

— Demosthenes

18. “It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery.”

— Demosthenes

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

— Demosthenes

20. “The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once.”

— Demosthenes

21. “Whatever shall be to the advantage of all, may that prevail!”

— Demosthenes

22. “The most noble title any child can have is Third.”

— Demosthenes

23. “Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each me wishes, that he also believes is true.”

— Demosthenes

24. “To remind a man of the good turns you have done him is very much like a reproach.”

— Demosthenes

25. “As a vessel is known by the sound, whether it be cracked or not; so men are proved, by their speeches, whether they be wise or foolish.”

— Demosthenes

26. “Good fortune is the greatest of blessings, but good counsel comes next, and the lack of it destroys the other also.”

— Demosthenes

27. “Nothing is more easy than to deceive one’s self, as our affections are subtle persuaders.”

— Demosthenes

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

— Demosthenes

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

— Demosthenes

30. “It is the natural disposition of all men to listen with pleasure to abuse and slander of their neighbour, and to hear with impatience those who utter praises of themselves.”

— Demosthenes

31. “One believes in what one wants to believe in...”

— Demosthenes

32. “We need money, for sure, Athenians, and without money nothing can be done that ought to be done.”

— Demosthenes

33. “Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.”

— Demosthenes

34. “The sower of the seed is assuredly the author of the whole harvest of mischief.”

— Demosthenes

35. “There is a great deal of wishful thinking in such cases it is the easiest thing of all to deceive ones self.”

— Demosthenes

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

— Demosthenes

37. “Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states.”

— Demosthenes

38. “I decline to buy repentance at the cost often thousand drachmas.”

— Demosthenes

39. “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.”

— Demosthenes

40. “Great and unexpected successes are often the cause of foolish rushing into acts of extravagance.”

— Demosthenes

41. “The more able a man is, if he make ill use of his abilities, the more dangerous will he be to the commonwealth.”

— Demosthenes

42. “The man who is in the highest state of prosperity, and who thinks his fortune is most secure, knows not if it will remain unchanged till the evening.”

— Demosthenes

43. “He who confers a favor should at once forget it, if he is not to show a sordid ungenerous spirit. To remind a man of a kindness conferred and to talk of it, is little different from reproach.”

— Demosthenes

44. “Close alliances with despots are never safe for free states.”

— Demosthenes

45. “It is impossible for men engaged in low and groveling pursuits to have noble and generous sentiments. A man’s thought must always follow his employment.”

— Demosthenes

46. “I’ll betide thee, say I, and may the Gods, or at least the Athenians, confound thee for a vile citizen and a vile third-rate actor! Read the evidence.”

— Demosthenes