For the People of Megalopolis (23-24)

I should like to ask those speakers who profess hatred of the Thebans and of the Lacedaemonians, whether they hate them in either case for your sake and in your interests, or whether they hate the Thebans for the sake of the Lacedaemonians and the Lacedaemonians for the sake of the Thebans respectively. If the latter, you must not take the advice of either party, because they are both mad; but if they allege your interests, why do they unduly forward the interests of those other states.

For it is surely possible to humble the Thebans without strengthening the Lacedaemonians; nay, it is much easier. How it can be done, I will try to explain.

Everyone knows this much, that all men, even against their wishes, are, up to a certain point, ashamed not to do what is just, but make a display of opposition to injustice, especially in cases where there are definite victims; and we shall find that what ruins everything—the root in fact of all evil—is unwillingness to act justly under all circumstances.