Demosthenes

"Quorum longe princeps Demosthenes ac paene lex orandi fuit: tanta vis in eo, tam densa omnia, ita quibusdam nervis intenta sunt, tam nihil otiosum, is dicendi modus, ut nec quod desit in eo nec quod redundet invenias."

"Demosthenes met war with war only because submitting to brute force can give but a debasing peace. The strong who hold all the rewards in their hands had no degrading attraction for him. At one stroke and for always he gave himself to that subtly inconsequential people — inconsequential because its yoked strength and weakness pulled against each other as they were alternately attracted by the fleeting flatteries it was eager to give and to receive. In the worst trials, respectful of the Athenian ideal to which he had consecrated his life, he remained immutably faithful to his City and to Hellas, through which the civilization that we glory in was enabled to live and flourish."

"We have in Demosthenes an exceptional example of a type rare even in later antiquity and therefore of inestimable value to us: for here is one man of the ancient world whom we can know not merely as a walking canon of virtue, the hero of some largely fictitious school of biography patched together a century or more after his death, but as a real person in a real environment, waging a lifelong struggle against all his human frailties."

"Nam plane quidem perfectum et quoi nihil admodum desit Demosthenem facile dixeris. Nihil acute inveniri potuit in eis causis quas scripsit, nihil, ut ita dicam, subdole, nihil versute, quod ille non viderit; nihil subtiliter dici, nihil presse, nihil enucleate, quo fieri possit aliquid limatius; nihil contra grande, nihil incitatum, nihil ornatum vel verborum gravitate vel sententiarum, quo quicquam esset elatius."

"Do you remember that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, "How well he spoke" but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, "Let us march."

"πρὸς γὰρ τὸ τελευταῖον ἐκβὰν ἕκαστον τῶν προϋπαρξάντων κρίνεται."

"Of orators, if I must choose you any, it shall be Demosthenes, both for the argument he handles, and for that his eloquence is more proper to a statesman than Ciceros."

"Demosthenes would have saved his country had it consented to be saved."