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If you have decided, men of Athens, what it
is best to do in the circumstances, it is a mistake to propose debate; for why should you
be needlessly bored by listening to what you have yourselves judged to be expedient before
hearing it discussed? But if, assuming that you must reach a judgement on the basis of
what shall be said, you are exploring and deliberating, it is wrong to stop those who wish
to speak, since by so doing you are deprived entirely of whatever practical proposal some
speakers have thought up, and you cause other speakers to abandon their own conclusions in
favour of what they think you desire to hear.
Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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