The best protection for the people is not necessarily to believe everything people tell them.

We believe whatever we want to believe.

We need money, for sure, Athenians, and without money nothing can be done that ought to be done.

Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.

No man who is not willing to help himself has any right to apply to his friends, or to the gods.

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.

There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection and preservation of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches, and the like... But prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all, and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies. What is this safeguard? Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep this, you need fear no harm.