History of the Peloponnesian War

You are excellent men for one to deceive with a speech of a new strain but backward to follow any tried advice, slaves to strange things, contemners of things usual. You would everyone chiefly give the best advice;

but if you cannot, then you will contradict those that do. You would not be thought to come after with your opinion but rather, if anything be acutely spoken, to applaud it first and to appear ready apprehenders of what is spoken even before it be out, but slow to preconceive the sequel of the same. You would hear, as one may say, somewhat else than what our life is conversant in;

and yet you sufficiently understand not that that is before your eyes. And to speak plainly, overcome with the delight of the ear, you are rather like unto spectators sitting to hear the contentions of sophisters than to men that deliberate of the state of a commonwealth.