308
for you will find if you review the career of each of these, that it was not those who lived unscrupulously or negligently nor those who did not stand out from the multitude who accomplished these things, but that it was men who were superior and pre-eminent, not only in birth and reputation, but in wisdom and eloquence, who have been the authors of all our blessings.
309
You ought to lay this lesson to heart and, while seeing to it in behalf of the mass of the people that they shall obtain their just rights in the trials of their personal disputes and that they shall have their due share of the other privileges which are common to all, you ought, on the other hand, to welcome and honor and cherish those who stand out from the multitude both in ability and in training and those who aspire to such eminence, since you know that leadership in great and noble enterprises, and the power to keep the city safe from danger and to preserve the rule of the people, rests with such men, and not with the sycophants.
310
Many ideas crowd into my thoughts, but I do not know how I can make place for them; for it seems to me that while every point which I have in mind would appeal to you if I presented it by itself, yet if I attempted to discuss them all at this time, I should put too great a strain both upon myself and upon my hearers. Indeed I fear that in what I have already said to you I may have fatigued you by speaking at such length.