Zitate von Démosthenés

„Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.“

—  Démosthenés

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

—  Démosthenés

As quoted in The World's Laconics: Or, The Best Thoughts of the Best Authors (1853) by Everard Berkeley, p. 34

„For a house, I take it, or a ship or anything of that sort must have its chief strength in its substructure; and so too in affairs of state the principles and the foundations must be truth and justice.“

—  Démosthenés

Olytnhiac II, 10 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0070%3Aspeech%3D2%3Asection%3D10
Original: (el) ὥσπερ γὰρ οἰκίας, οἶμαι, καὶ πλοίου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν τοιούτων τὰ κάτωθεν ἰσχυρότατ᾽ εἶναι δεῖ, οὕτω καὶ τῶν πράξεων τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ τὰς ὑποθέσεις ἀληθεῖς καὶ δικαίας εἶναι προσήκει

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

—  Démosthenés

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 455.

„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.“

—  Démosthenés

As quoted in Dictionary of foreign phrases and classical quotations (1908) by Hugh Percy Jones, p. 140

„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.“

—  Démosthenés

As quoted in Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 1‎ (1940), p. 472

„Delivery, delivery, delivery.“

—  Démosthenés

Response when asked to name the three most important components of rhetoric, as quoted in Institutio Oratoria (c. 95) by Quintilian; also in Unspoken : A Rhetoric of Silence (2004) by Cheryl Glenn, p. 150

„The easiest thing in the world is self-deceit; for every man believes what he wishes, though the reality is often different.“

—  Démosthenés

Third Olynthiac http://books.google.com/books?id=n4INAAAAYAAJ&q="the+easiest+thing+in+the+world+is+self-deceit+for+every+man+believes+what+he+wishes+though+the+reality+is+often+different"&pg=PA57#v=onepage, section 19 (349 BC), as translated by Charles Rann Kennedy (1852)
Variants:
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
As quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Robert Andrews, p. 255
There is nothing easier than self-delusion. Since what man desires, is the first thing he believes.

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

—  Démosthenés

Olynthiacs; Philippics (1930) as translated by James Herbert Vince, p. 11

„Whatever shall be to the advantage of all, may that prevail!“

—  Démosthenés

Speech against Philip II of Macedon (351 BC), in Olynthiacs; Philippics (1930) as translated by James Herbert Vince, p. 99

„No man can tell what the future may bring forth, and small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.“

—  Démosthenés

Ad Leptinum 162, as quoted in Dictionary of Quotations (Classical) (1897) by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 511