Taking everything together then, I declare that our city is an education to Greece, and … each single one of our citizens, in all the manifold aspects of life, is able to show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own person … the power which our city possesses … has been won by those very qualities … Mighty indeed are the marks and monuments of our empire … Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now … you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she really is, and should fall in love with her … Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

Let every man, with me, apply his mind seriously to consider, what their life and what their manners were; by what men and what measures, both in peace and war, their empire was gained and enlarged. When by degrees their discipline began to relax, let him attentively observe, first the declension of their manners, next their constant visible decay, and lastly their total degeneracy, till he comes to the present age, when we can neither bear our political distempers, nor endure a proper remedy.