Demosthenes, Exordia
Norman W. DeWitt, Norman J. DeWitt, Ed.

[2] Previously, I confess by the gods, I did not know what was the point of the saying: “Responsibility reveals the man.”¹ But now I think I could even tell another what it means. For the officials, or some of them— to avoid saying all—feel not even the slightest regard for your decrees but consider how they shall make some gain. Certainly, if it had been feasible for me to make a payment, I might have been justly rebuked for this very reason, if I chose to annoy you through balking at a paltry expenditure. But as things are, it is not feasible, as these men themselves have not failed to observe.