On the Chersonese (22-23)

but we grumble and criticize his methods, and ask what he intends to do, and all that sort of thing; and yet, while maintaining that attitude, we refuse to perform our own tasks; with our lips we praise those whose speeches are worthy of our city, but our actions serve only to encourage their opponents.

Now, you have a habit of asking a speaker on every occasion, What then must be done?; but I prefer to ask you, What then must be said? Because, if you are not going to pay your contributions, nor serve in person, nor keep your hands off the public funds, nor grant Diopithes his allowances, nor sanction the sums that he raises for himself, nor consent to perform your own tasks, I have nothing to say. You who have gone so far in granting license to those whose object is fault-finding and calumny, that even about what they say he is going to do, even on that ground they accuse him in advance and you listen to them—what can anyone say?