On the Chersonese (74-75)

For you know, of course, that the famous Timotheus[*] once harangued you to the effect that you ought to send an expedition to save the Euboeans, when the Thebans were trying to enslave them, and his words ran something like this: Tell me, he said, when you have got the Thebans in the island, are you deliberating how you will deal with them and what you ought to do? Will you not cover the sea with your war-galleys, men of Athens? Will you not rise up at once and march down to the Piraeus and drag them down the slips?

That, then, was what Timotheus said, and that was what you did, and the union of the two brought about the practical result. But if Timotheus had given you the best advice he could (as indeed he did), but you had shirked your duty and paid no heed to him, would the State have reaped any of the effects that then followed? Not a bit of it. So the same applies to whatever I utter now and whatever this man or that utters. For deeds you must look to yourselves, but for advice, the best that skill in speech can command, look to the speaker who rises to address you.