71
For if we should grant the truth of what would be your best possible answer, that you do all this for love of glory and renown, I wonder what earthly reason you have for thinking that you yourself ought for that object to make every exertion, facing toil and danger, whereas you advise the State to abandon such efforts in sheer indifference. For this you cannot say—that it is your duty to make a figure in the State, but that the State is of no importance in the Greek world.
72
And there is another thing I do not see—that it is safe for the State to mind its own business, but dangerous for you if you do not go beyond your fellow-citizens in meddling with affairs.
73
Nay, on the contrary, I do foresee the utmost danger, to you from your bustling and meddling, but to the State from its inactivity. But you may say that you have the honour of your grandfather and father to uphold, and it would be scandalous to subvert it in your person, but that the State has inherited only nameless and paltry exploits from our ancestors. But that too is untrue; for you had a thief for your father, if he was like you, but our fathers, as all the Greeks know, preserved them from the deadliest perils.
