Athenian citizens

You, the common people.

As a safeguard against such a dilemma the lawgiver made this provision in your interest.

How, indeed, could any private person ill-treat the State more gravely than by subverting the laws by which the State is administered?

You see, fellow citizens, how certain persons have been making their preparations for this case:

today your fellow citizens as a body have put the city and the constitution into your hands as a solemn trust.

There are, as you know, fellow-citizens, three forms of government in the world tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy.

And so a citizen of Athens, because Meidias lost his suit by default, has been deprived of all his civic rights, and has been irrevocably disfranchised;

My object, men of Athens, is that you may know and feel that there is not, and never will be, anything—not birth, not wealth, not power—that you, the great mass of citizens, ought to tolerate, if it is coupled with insolence.

And then this same man, so cruel, so heartless, who has taken such dire vengeance for his wrongs—you have only his word for them, for he really suffered none—will you acquit him when you have detected him in a wanton outrage on one of the citizens?