Spartan culture Quotes

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."

The Spartans do not inquire how many the enemy are, but where they are.

I imagine the film ["300"] as if I was a Spartan and I had never seen an immortal or a Persian, or an elephant or a rhino for that matter.

Come back with your shield - or on it

The most important thing Spartans must learn is to know how to govern, and to be governed

Look, if you have a problem with distilling the Battle of Thermopylae down to freedom versus tyranny, you need to read Herodotus because he's the one. It's his fault, not modern culture's fault. He did it.' [Victor Davis Hanson] references a lot of things like that because he feels like the spirit of the book and of the movie ["300"] are very close to the Spartan aesthetic. That's really kind of what he feels."

I wil not compare the education of an ancient Spartan with that of a British nobleman.

The Spartan, smiting and spurning the wretched Helot, moves our disgust. But the same Spartan, calmly dressing his hair, and uttering his concise jests, on what the well knows to be his last day, in the pass of Thermopylae, is not to be contemplated without admiration.

For what can be more noble than to slay oneself? Not literally. Not with a blade in the guts. But to extinguish the selfish self within, that part which looks only to its own preservation, to save its own skin. That, I saw, was the victory you Spartans had gained over yourselves. That was the glue. It was what you had learned and it made me stay, to learn it too.

The Spartans do not enquire how many the enemy are, but where they are.

Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta.

The wives of Spartans are the secret pillars of the world."--Odd Thomas

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

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.