Sparta Quotes

• The daughters of Sparta are never at home! They mingle with the young men in wrestling matches.

  Euripides

  Daughter, Home, Wrestling

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• Foreign lady once remarked to the wife of a Spartan commander that the women of Sparta were the only women in the world who could rule men. "We are the only women who raise men," the Spartan lady replied.

  Plutarch

  Men, Wife, World

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• For the Spartans, it wasn’t walls or magnificent public buildings that made a city; it was their own ideals. In essence, Sparta was a city of the head and the heart. And it existed in its purest form in the disciplined march of a hoplite phalanx on their way to war!

  Bettany Hughes

  Wall, War, Heart

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• Come back with your shield - or on it

  Plutarch

  Greek, Shields, Empires

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• So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Courage, Badass, Military

  Address at the Sorbonne, Paris, 23 Apr. 1910. Richard M. Nixon quoted this passage in his address to the nation announcing his decision to resign the presidency, 8 Aug. 1974. See Theodore Roosevelt 1; Theodore Roosevelt 2; Theodore Roosevelt 5

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• I am firmly convinced, therefore, that to set up a republic which is to last a long time, the way to set about it is to constitute it as Sparta and Venice were constituted; to place it in a strong position, and so to fortify it that no one will dream of taking it by a sudden assault; and, on the other hand, not to make it so large as to appear formidable to its neighbors. It should in this way be able to enjoy its form of government for a long time. For war is made on a commonwealth for two reasons: to subjugate it, and for fear of being subjugated by it.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Dream, Art, Strong

  "Discourses on Livy" by Niccolò Machiavelli, book 1, ch. 3, as translated by LJ Walker and B Crick, 1517.

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• Only Spartan women give birth to real men.

  Gorgo, Queen of Sparta

  Real, Men, Giving

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• Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, "Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta."

  Diogenes

  Boys, Men, Good Man

  "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6: The Cynics". Book by Diogenes Laërtius translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925.

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• The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.

  Thucydides

  War, Growth, Alarms

  Thucydides, Victor Davis Hanson, Robert B. Strassler (2008). “The Landmark Thucydides”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

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• A Spartan woman, as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him saying, "As a warrior of Sparta come back with your shield or on it."

  Plutarch

  Warrior, Son, Shields

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• Look at The Iliad, there's all this stuff about men loving children. The King of Sparta was the most brutal warrior of ancient Greece, and the only thing he liked to do was horse around with kids when he was back from slaughtering. One thing that feminism revealed is that being a distant patriarchal figure was not something men wanted to be. They want to be more involved in the lives of their children, and you can see that once they're allowed to have that connection, they crave it.

  Stephen Marche

  Horse, Kings, Children

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta.

  Diogenes

  Men, Boys, Good Man

  "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6: The Cynics". Book by Diogenes Laërtius translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925.

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• "Godling? Demigod?" Lysis nearly howled. "You'd be beaten black and blue in Thebes, and staked out overnight for claims like that. In Sparta, the secret police would ambush you, violate you, skin you alive and use your skull for a drinking cup."

  Janet Morris

  God, Drinking, Blue

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• An armed republic submits less easily to the rule of one of its citizens than a republic armed by foreign forces. Rome and Sparta were for many centuries well armed and free. The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom. Among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible. It is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed; or that any unarmed man will remain safe among armed servants.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Men, Rome, Evil

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• Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Gun, Eight, Rome

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• Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian brought long hair into fashion among his countrymen, saying that it rendered those that were handsome more beautiful, and those that were deformed more terrible. To one that advised him to set up a democracy in Sparta, "Pray," said Lycurgus, "do you first set up a democracy in your own house."

  Plutarch

  Beautiful, Fashion, Hair

  "Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders". 57 Lycurgus. "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition", 1919.

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• We have the ability to be the Athens of modern times as opposed to the militaristic Sparta. I remind you that the Athenians wrote poetry. The Spartans did not.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Athens, Modern, Ability

  Rita Mae Brown (1987). “Poems”

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• Sparta must be regarded as the first völkisch state. The exposure of the sick, weak, deformed children, in short, their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more human than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject.

  Adolf Hitler

  Children, Sick, Insanity

  "Hitler's Secret Book". Grove Press softcover book, 1961.

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• A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but every goose can."

  Plutarch

  Believe, Long, Legs

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.433

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• We are on the path toward becoming the Sparta of the 21st century, armed to the teeth and without the capacity to care for our own people.

  Dennis Kucinich

  People, Teeth, Care

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• It is the teaching of the Bible and of sound Political ethics that the education of children belongs to the sphere of the family and is the duty of the parents. The theory that the children of the Commonwealth are the charge of the Commonwealth is a pagan one, derived from heathen Sparta and Platoís heathen republic, and connected by regular, logical sequence with legalized prostitution and the dissolution of the conjugal tie.

  Robert Dabney

  Education, Children, Plato

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• Julian was the son of Diokles of Sparta, also known as Diokles the Butcher. That man made the Marquis de Sade look like Ronald McDonald. (Ben)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Son, Men, Mcdonalds

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2009). “Fantasy Lover”, p.144, Hachette UK

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• What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.

  Thucydides

  War, History, Growth

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• How much education may reconcile young people to pain and sufference, the examples of Sparta do sufficiently shew; and they who have once brought themselves not to think bodily pain the greatest of evils, or that which they ought to stand most in fear of, have made no small advance toward virtue.

  John Locke

  Pain, Thinking, Evil

  John Locke (1727). “The works of John Locke ...”, p.52

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• Little Sparta is a garden in the traditional sense. It is perhaps not like other modern gardens, but I think that other times would have had no difficulty with it.

  Ian Hamilton Finlay

  Garden, Thinking, Littles

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