"Spartan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and resolves, with all the airs of a Spartan, to be calm. Nevertheless, he is not calm, and quite doubles the amount of minutes that really elapse before the drawing-room door is thrown open and Cecil, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Methodists, and Empirics, and adopted what they considered to be the best teaching of each sect. The Eclectics were very similar to, if not identical with, the Episynthetics, founded by a pupil of Athenaeus, by name, Agathinus. He was a Spartan by birth. He is frequently quoted by Galen, but none of his writings ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... arrived late in the day in the shape of an elderly woman, whose Spartan treatment of her patients had helped many along the silent road. She commenced her reign by punching the sick man's pillows, and having shaken him into consciousness by this means, gave him a dose of physic, after first tasting ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... wife whom thou hast; but do thou give to her all that thou givest now and at the same time take to thy house another wife in addition to this one, to bear thee children." When they spoke to him after this manner, Anaxandrides consented, having two wives, a thing which was not by any means after the Spartan fashion. ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... lady on the right, please come to the piano." The girl indicated, a dignified senior, obeyed the summons, coolly handed the professor her music, stationed herself at his side and awaited trial with the air of a Spartan. After a short prelude she began to sing a popular air that was at that time going the round of Sanford. She sang one verse, then the professor dropped his hands from the keys, inquired her name, made a ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... so-called leaders in line, and the tremendous power of public patronage can understand how much of demagogism in every community the farmers have had to meet and overcome in order to conquer an eighty thousand majority. It has required patriotism, common sense, and a Spartan-like heroism to face their organized foes and come off victorious. To their honor be it said that few Judases have been found among them at the ballot-box, or ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... young, and judging exteriorly, you are wrong. There is recounted somewhere in the classics an altogether incredible story of a Spartan youth and a fox: the boy, with the animal hid beneath his cloak, preserved an unruffled demeanor despite the animal's tearing teeth, until he fell down and died. In the same way, young sir, no man can lose fifty-odd ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... Jampot, and the going of the Jampot meant the breaking of a life-time's traditions. The departure was depressing and unsettling; the weather was—as it always is during January in Glebeshire—at its worst, and the Jampot, feeling it all very deeply, maintained a terrible Spartan composure, which was meant to show indifference and a sense of injustice. She had to the very last believed it incredible that she should really go. She had been in the old Orange Street house for eight years, and had intended to be there until she died. ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... some day of the most Spartan simplicity, all our needs cut down to the lowest and plainest of possessions, and yet a spirit of hospitality, of contentment, of gaiety, of self-reliance and ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... of her Irish lover. She was proud of her own subsequent conduct, and gave herself credit for coming out strongly as a noble-minded matron. "I believe she thinks," said Mrs. Mackinnon, "that her virtue is quite Spartan and unique; and if she remains in Rome she'll boast of ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... both father and mother to me, and even in this he thinks he is acting for my good. I have never disobeyed him, and were I to do so now I believe it would break his heart. I am all that he has left, and after what he has suffered in his silent, Spartan way, I must bring joy—not sorrow—to his declining years. And this will be ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... dear to their sex, their pocket money was scanty almost to vanishing point, and they had early learnt the stern lesson of "doing without things". Adversity may be a hard task-mistress, but she is an excellent teacher in the school of life, and their Spartan upbringing had given the Gascoynes a certain resourcefulness and grit of character that they might possibly have lacked in more affluent surroundings. They were not a perfect family by any means, and had their squabbles and their cross moods like many another; but on the whole they were ready ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... with conscientious soundness of judgment, had ordered her removal for a prolonged sojourn to city life in Toronto; a course which, in spite of heartbroken appeal on the girl's part, her mother insisted upon carrying out with Spartan-like resolution. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... many others of the ancient learned. I saw most of the first Roman emperors. I prevailed on the governor to call up Heliogabalus's cooks to dress us a dinner, but they could not show us much of their skill, for want of materials. A helot of Agesilaus made us a dish of Spartan broth, but I was not able to get down ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... Hebrew ordeal of jealousy the sacred water decides whether the accused woman is guilty or not.[573] The sea is treated as a living thing, whose anger may be appeased by gifts; it is a monster, a dragon.[574] The Spartan Cleomenes, about to start on a voyage, sacrifices a bull to the sea.[575] Offerings to the sea are ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... maple-wood chest, like a temple treasure-box. It was, outside, perhaps a foot wide and about as high, and not over a foot and a half long. He had forced it open with the hatchet and a heavy knife, like a Spartan wood-knife. The wood of the chest was so thick that the inside cavity was comparatively small. But it was big enough to have held, say, two quarts of wine. And it was almost full of jewels; opals, turquoises, topazes, amethysts, rubies, emeralds ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... days more blest? Must we but blush?—Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... Banner, and the Field,[vi] Glory and Greece, around me see! The Spartan, borne upon his shield,[134] Was ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... I look upon this as the first glorious achievement of the Spartan. By displaying the perjury of Tissaphernes he robbed him of his credit with all the world; by the exhibition of himself in contrast as a man who ratified his oath and would not gainsay an article of his ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... country is dearer than the mere victory of party, as truth is more precious than the interest of any sect. You will hear this patriotism scorned as an impracticable theory, as the dream of a cloister, as the whim of a fool. But such was the folly of the Spartan Leonidas, staying with his three hundred the Persian horde, and teaching Greece the self-reliance that saved her. Such was the folly of the Swiss Arnold von Winkelried, gathering into his own breast the points of ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... tone, "is the house of the Akitcita, our soldiers and policemen, the men between twenty and forty, the warriors of the first rank, who live here in common, and into whose house women and children may not enter. I have read in the books at your schools how the Spartan young men lived together as soldiers in a common house, eating rough food and doing the severest duty, and the whole world has long applauded. The Sioux, who never heard of the Spartans, have been doing the same far back into the ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... thousand fields of incident, adventure, and bitter trials, they had proved their stanch heroism and their fortitude; they had lived and endured nobly. I remember the enthusiasm with which they responded to my appeals; I remember their bold bearing during the darkest days; I remember the Spartan pluck, the indomitable courage, with which they suffered in the days of our adversity. Their voices again loyally answer me, and again I hear them address each other upon the necessity of standing by the 'master.' Their boat-song, which contained ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... which one usually begins a trip. Also, as I rummaged through two bags to find the cap I wanted, I longed for Peters, my faithful man, who could be backed to produce any desired thing at a moment's notice. When bound for Flanders or the Vosges, however, one must be a Spartan. I found what I sought at last and ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... quite otherwise: a mere dumb piece of boyish romance, that I had lacked penetration to divine. But the error serves the purpose of my argument; for I am sure, at least, that the heart of young Scotland will be always touched more nearly by paucity of number and Spartan poverty of life. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me thy claims are justly great: Thy milder virtues could my muse relate, To thee alone, unrivall'd, would belong The feeble efforts of my lengthen'd song. Well canst thou boast, to lead in senates fit, A Spartan firmness with Athenian wit: Though yet in embryo these perfections shine, Lycus! thy father's fame will soon be thine. Where learning nurtures the superior mind, What may we hope from genius thus refin'd! When time at length matures thy growing years, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... were Spartan women, as the story-books say, I wonder if their blood died with them! I ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... which modern Constantinople stands. It was said to have been founded by Megarians and Argives under Byzas about 657 B.C., but the original settlement having been destroyed in the reign of Darius Hystaspes by the satrap Otanes, it was recolonized by the Spartan Pausanias, who wrested it from the Medes after the battle of Plataea (479 B.C.)—a circumstance which led several ancient chroniclers to ascribe its foundation to him. Its situation, said to have been fixed by the Delphic oracle, was remarkable for beauty and security. It had complete ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... consisted of feasting, hunting, and making war . their every-day life was too hard. On the whole, however, their state is merely a caricature of the polls, a corruption of Hellas. The breeding of the complete Spartan—but what was there great about him that his breeding should have required such a ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... were numerous special temples or places where the souls of the dead, which were universally thought to possess a knowledge of the future, could be called up and consulted—e.g., the temple at Phigalia, in Arcadia, used by Pausanias, the Spartan commander;[53] or the [Greek: nekyomanteion], the oracle of the dead, by the River Acheron, in Threspotia, to which Periander, the famous tyrant of Corinth, had recourse;[54] and it was here, according to Pausanias, that Orpheus ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... of Euergetes, the happiness of the people came to an end. The first trouble arose from the loose and vicious habits of the new king, and was an attempt made upon his life by Cleomenes, who found the palace in Alexandria had now become a prison. The Spartan took advantage of the king's being at Canopus to escape from his guards, and to raise a riot in Alexandria; but not being able to gain the citadel, and seeing that disgrace and death must follow upon his failure, he stabbed himself with ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... not reply, and his silence wounded Lady Lucy to the quick. Was it her fault if her husband, out of an eccentric distrust of the character of his son, and moved by a kind of old-fashioned and Spartan belief that a man must endure hardness before he is fit for luxury, had made her and not Oliver the arbiter and legatee of his wealth? But Oliver had never wanted for anything. He had only to ask. What right had she ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... threw whole villages into consternation by their unparalleled volubility, and their intolerable inquisitiveness—two evil habits hitherto unknown in those parts, or only known to be abhorred; for our ancestors were noted as being men of truly Spartan taciturnity, and who neither knew nor cared aught about anybody's concerns but their own. Many enormities were committed on the highways, where several unoffending burghers were brought to a stand, and tortured with questions and guesses, which outrages occasioned as much vexation ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Zola's life had been a steady struggle against poverty. He was terribly in earnest, and was determined to create for himself a place in literature; to accomplish this end he counted no labour too arduous, no sacrifice too great. His habits were Spartan in their simplicity; he was a slave to work and method, good equipment for the vast task he was next to undertake. He had long been an earnest student of Balzac, and there is no doubt that it was the example of the great Comedie Humaine which inspired his scheme for ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... his body, Spartan-like, to all the fatigues and exposures of war. He indulged in no luxury of tents or carriages, and ate the flesh of horses and wild beasts, which he roasted himself, over the coals. In his campaigns the ground was his bed, the sky his curtain, his horse ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... tells another story of Boyer. "The discipline at Christ's Hospital in my time," he says, "was ultra-Spartan; all domestic ties were to be put aside. 'Boy!' I remember Bowyer saying to me once when I was crying the first day of my return after the holidays, 'Boy! the school is your father! Boy! the school is your mother! Boy! the school is your brother! the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... expanded family. Athenian government a type of Grecian democracy. Constitution of Solon seeks a remedy. Cleisthenes continues the reforms of Solon. Athenian democracy failed in obtaining its best and highest development. The Spartan state differs from all others. Greek colonization spreads knowledge. The conquests of Alexander. Contributions ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... knows, and I believe that, but for one cruel memory, he might have learnt even to taste some humour in his situation. Thanks to Mr. Jope and Mr. Adams, who had taken a genuine fancy to him, he found life on board the Vesuvius cheerful if not comfortable. The fare was Spartan, indeed, but, for a short holiday, tolerable. The prospect of seeing some real fighting excited him pleasurably, for he was no coward. Here, before his eyes, lay the coast of France; the actual forts and guns with which his imagination had so often played. What a tale he ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... plain and unpretentious building, which was largely due to the munificence of Archbishop Laud, was begun in 1635 and finished two years later. It cost, with the buildings above, about L4,200. Its dreary late-Gothic windows and heavy tracery, and the Spartan severity of its unbacked benches, are characteristic of the time of transition, alike architectural and religious, to which it belongs. It has been from that time to this the Parliament House of the University, where all matters are first discussed ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... to have sprung from the tears of the Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, began as the Colewort, and was for six hundred years, according to Pliny and Cato, the only internal remedy used by the Romans. The Ionians had such a veneration for Cabbages that they swore by them, just as the Egyptians did by the onion. ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... a fall, and one act of indiscretion stripped the Athenians of all the advantages which they had acquired on the mainland of Greece. In every city of Greece there were always two parties, the wealthy and noble, called oligarchs, and the demos, or commons; and according as Spartan or Athenian influence was in the ascendant the balance of power in each city wavered between the nobles and the people, the Athenians favouring the Many, the Spartans the Few. Accordingly there was always a party living in exile, and waiting for a turn of affairs which might enable ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... that expressed itself in sheer defiance of worldly prudence, that made him feel kindly towards the young Dane. Denmark's taking up arms, with its two million inhabitants, against a great power like Prussia, roused his enthusiasm. "It is great, it is Spartan!" he exclaimed. It must certainly be admitted that this human sympathy was not a prominent characteristic, and he wearied me with his hateful verdicts over all those whom I, and by degrees, all Europe, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... Mr. Genuine Bacon-Fat, appointed by me in my last will I give and bequeath: thirty measures of acorns; and to my mother, Mrs. Old-Timer Sow, appointed by me in my last will, I give and bequeath: forty measures of Spartan wheat; and to my sister, Cry-Baby, appointed by me in my last will, whose wedding, alas! I cannot attend, I give and bequeath: thirty measures of barley; and of my nobler parts and property I give and bequeath, to the cobbler: my bristles; ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... "never-surrender" Spartan chaps were brought into camp, the most hang-dog looking set of ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... tale who saves himself from cobra or rattler by letting the serpent crawl its slow way over his perfectly controlled body might have withheld even a quiver of the flesh, but I am no Spartan. At my convulsive shudder each horrid claw gripped a death-hold. In one swift motion I seized a corkscrew that lay nearby, pried loose with a quick jerk every single pede and threw the odious thing a dozen yards. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... and more, From the sun's axle; they with labour pushed Oblique the centrick globe: Some say, the sun Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road Like distant breadth to Taurus with the seven Atlantick Sisters, and the Spartan Twins, Up to the Tropick Crab: thence down amain By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales, As deep as Capricorn; to bring in change Of seasons to each clime; else had the spring Perpetual smiled on earth with vernant flowers, Equal in ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... know if it is true that he is engaged to Miss Stuart," replied Anne, with Spartan composure, "but it is certainly true that ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... head, and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that bud of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to the one side. His master I occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John," but was laconic as any Spartan. ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... Spartans, and were the rulers of the land, though the Greeks, who were there before them, were also freemen, all but those of one city, called Helos, which revolted, and was therefore broken up, and the people were called Helots, and became slaves to the Spartans. One of the Spartan kings, sons of Hercules, had twin sons, and these two reigned together with equal rights, and so did their sons after them, so that there were always two kings at Sparta. One line was called the Agids, from Agis, its second king; the other Eurypontids, from Eurypon, its third king, instead of ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... feel quite tired and sleepy before the doctor returned for him, and his bruises ached badly. Once he would have cried and worried every one about him, if in such an uncomfortable state; but now he bore the pain like a Spartan. ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... noise of a brawl.—There was that in the Admiral that would have when it could outward no less than inward magnificence. He could go like a Spartan or Diogenes the Cynic, but when the chance came—magnificence! With him from Spain traveled a Viceroy's household. He had no less than thirty personal servants and retainers. Hidalgos here at Isabella had also servants, but no one more than two or three. It was among ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... then quite alien, on to the alleged motion picture punch, when the Doctor is the god from the machine. There is no doctor on the stage in the original Ghosts. But there is a physician in the Doll's House, a scientific, quietly moving oracle, crisp, Spartan, sophisticated. ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... hidden his ships in a bay that was well covered with trees, went forth to spy out the new land whither he was come, and Achates only went with him. And AEneas had in each hand a broad-pointed spear. And as he went there met him in the middle of the wood his mother, but habited as a Spartan virgin, for she had hung a bow from her shoulders after the fashion of a huntress, and her hair was loose, and her tunic short to the knees, and her garments gathered in a knot upon her breast. Then first the false huntress spake: "If perchance ye have seen one ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... you could! You are an angel, a Spartan, and a sport. Your nature is simply an extravagant profusion of the highest human attributes. And the worst of it is, you look it. You are too beautiful—in a superior, overtopping ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... had a physical antipathy to pea-soup. The very sight of it raises my gorge. Nor have I any special relish for potatoes, unless they are of good quality and well cooked. I therefore munched the brown bread, and washed it down with cold water. It was a Spartan meal, but a very indigestible one, as I can certify from painful experience. Why a prisoner's stomach should be so grossly abused by a sudden change of diet passes my comprehension. Surely it would not ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... Pollyooly's eyes brimmed over in her dismay and horror at this dreadful fate of her friend; and she, the dauntless, Spartan heroine of a hundred fights with the small boys ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... future years, and though burdened with little knowledge, possessed of an educated sense of beauty, and an ingrained love of what is noble and hatred of all that is the reverse. He would be more cultivated and human than the best type of young Spartan, more physically vigorous and reverential, though less intellectually developed, than the best type of young Athenian—a nascent soldier and servant of the state, not, like most young Athenians of ability, a nascent orator. And as he would be only half way through his education at an ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... was bad enough to be poor, while by the labour of their thin hands, the sweat of their brows, the masters were made rich; but they would not be utterly ground down to dust. No! they would fold their hands and sit idle, and smile at the masters, whom even in death they could baffle. With Spartan endurance they determined to let the employers know their ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... their public spirit by sacrifices of time and labor. And here I wish I could find fit terms in which to acknowledge the services and sufferings of women. You have heard of the Spartan mother equipping her son for battle, and giving him, last of all, the shield, with the brief and stern farewell, "With it or on it." We expect no such stoicism now, but we expect what is better. We expect that Christian mothers, with hearts bleeding for their country, ...
— The Spirit Proper to the Times. - A Sermon preached in King's Chapel, Boston, Sunday, May 12, 1861. • James Walker
... get. "Dear Demos," he will say, "try a single case and you will have done enough; then take your bath, eat, swallow and devour; here are three obols."[12] Then the Paphlagonian filches from one of us what we have prepared and makes a present of it to our old man. T'other day I had just kneaded a Spartan cake at Pylos;[13] the cunning rogue came behind my back, sneaked it and offered the cake, which was my invention, in his own name. He keeps us at a distance and suffers none but himself to wait upon the master; when Demos is dining, he keeps close to his side with ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... dear?" asked auntie, tenderly. "Are you in such pain?" for she knew that Cricket was a little Spartan in respect ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... genuine disgust; when you show them men of fashion they will despise them; you will give them a distaste for their maxims, an aversion to their sentiments, and a scorn for their empty gallantry; you will arouse a nobler ambition, to reign over great and strong souls, the ambition of the Spartan women to rule over men. A bold, shameless, intriguing woman, who can only attract her lovers by coquetry and retain them by her favours, wins a servile obedience in common things; in weighty and important matters she has no influence over them. But ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... DAS, the celebrated Spartan leader who, with three hundred men, perished in the effort to resist the Persian hosts, at the mountain pass of Thermopylae, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... they have a vast pride in the way they are sacrificing their creature comforts for it. In Latin countries there is more or less special privilege. But in England, the law is the law and men glory in its rigours by obeying it in proud self-sacrifice. If our dinners sometimes were Spartan in simplicity we found the talk ample, refreshing and filling. We, however, had some trouble with our "Who's Who." One evening they sat me opposite a handsome military man who talked of airships and things most wonderfully and it took me three days to learn that he was the authority ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flu'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew. Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls, Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouths like bells, Each under each: A cry more tuneable ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... 1820 near the forks of the Platte River. He was one of a family of nine children whose father, an able and respected warrior, reared his son under the old Spartan regime. The young Red Cloud is said to have been a fine horseman, able to swim across the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, of high bearing and unquestionable courage, yet invariably gentle and courteous in everyday ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... But the Spartan, the wolf Death gnawing at his vitals, had said all that it was necessary for him to say. Wilmot Allen's strong arm about him, his mouth vaguely smiling, he fell heavily forward as if under the weight of a new and overpowering ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... Lycurgus, the Spartan inherited no property, and was forbidden all luxury. He had to eat his simple black broth with his fellows, and to exercise himself continually in trials of strength and skill. Every Spartan had to marry, and the bonds of matrimony were strictly observed. Every weak child was eliminated. ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... short of it, at any rate. You speak like a Spartan. You come to the point at once. But why do you come to me? I have no control ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... and set up establishments for themselves, instead of bringing their wives to tend their aged parents, and live all together in harmony beneath the paternal roof. We are superior to the Chinese in our utter abhorrence of falsehood: in the practice of filial piety they beat us out of the field. "Spartan virtue" is a household word amongst us, but Sparta's claims to pre-eminence certainly do not rest upon her children's love either for honesty or for truth. The profoundest thinker of the nineteenth century ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... years. I will not weary you with futile minor divisions of time; here are three coins (Plate VII.) roughly, but decisively, characteristic of the three ages. The first is an early coin of Tarentum. The city was founded as you know, by the Spartan Phalanthus, late in the eighth century. I believe the head is meant for that of Apollo Archegetes, it may however be Taras, the son of Poseidon; it is no matter to us at present whom it is meant for, but the fact that we cannot know, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... to me, the only thing to be done. But I had the courage to hold my tongue, to gnaw at my entrails like the Spartan boy. I wished to leave ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... permitted to live were seven years old, they were taken from their mothers and made to endure cold, hunger, and inhuman severities. They were beaten until the blood flowed, simply to teach them endurance, and a Spartan boy would die under the lash rather than endure the disgrace of uttering a cry of pain. There was never any family ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... prevailed there an equal poverty; and the commons were less ambitious, because the offices of the State, which were held to their exclusion, were confined to a few; and because the nobles never by harsh treatment aroused in them any desire to usurp these offices. And this was due to the Spartan kings, who, being appointed to that dignity for life, and placed in the midst of this nobility, had no stronger support to their authority than in defending the people against injustice. Whence it resulted that as the people neither feared nor coveted the power which ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... very Spartan for brevity. This may be a cheap way of writing books; but the books are a dear bargain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... condition of a slaughtered beast as the natives, whose practice in that respect we had formerly ridiculed." When they caught an emu, their first and eager care was to pluck the feathers and cut into the flesh, "to see how thick the fat was, and whether it was a rich yellow." The Spartan Doctor himself was not proof against the greasy fascination. Hear his confession of a frailty, and record of its quick-succeeding punishment. 'Tis a propos of kites, which filthy feeders, unaccustomed in the lonely bush to the sight of man, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... that to eat in defence of principles was not so easy as to talk. I ate, but only a newly abnegated Jew can understand with what squirming, what protesting of the inner man, what exquisite abhorrence of myself. That Spartan boy who allowed the stolen fox hidden in his bosom to consume his vitals rather than be detected in the theft, showed no such miracle of self-control as did I, sitting there at my ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... there, in God's Eternity; surviving there, they alone surviving; sacred band of the Immortals, celestial body-guard of the empire of mankind. To thee Heaven, though severe, is not unkind; Heaven is kind,—as a noble mother; as that Spartan mother, saying while she gave her son his shield, "With it, my son, or upon it." Thou too shall return home in honor; to thy far-distant Home, in honor; doubt it not,—if in the battle thou keep thy shield! Thou, in the Eternities and deepest death-kingdoms art not an alien; ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... the aged have done the most. The middle aged may say we will improve upon what has been done; and the young, we shall accomplish still more than our fathers. That, fellow-citizens, was the boast in the ancient Spartan procession—a procession which was divided into three classes—the old, the middle-aged, and the young. They had a saying which each class repeated in turn. The ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... be to see you and be quiet. I understand other things than war; but duty is before everything. All my life I have sacrificed everything—peace, interest, happiness—to my destiny." These phrases in no way consoled Josephine who knew very well that her husband, in spite of his assumption of Spartan austerity; occasionally indulged ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... the New York magazines, going rather hungrily through their advertisements where such lovely layettes are described. My poor little Dinky-Dink's things are so plain and rough and meager. I envy those city mothers with all those beautiful linens and laces. But my little Spartan man-child has never known a single day's sickness. And some day ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... four fat years of wantonness and riot preceding fourteen hungry famine-stricken years of bloodiest civil war. The voluptuousness and infamy of the Louvre were almost paralleled in vice, if not in splendour, by the miniature court at Pau. Henry's Spartan grandfather would scarce have approved the courses of the youth, whose education he had commenced on so simple a scale. For Margaret of Valois, hating her husband, and living in most undisguised and promiscuous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... prepossessing face, clearly cut—indeed, it was a trifle thin—with a hint of quiet determination in the clear gray eyes and firm mouth. He looked capable of resolute action and, when it was needed, of Spartan self-denial. There was no suggestion of anything sensual, or even of much regard ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... among the moderns, was the first who conceived a method of knowledge." His great work is his "Republic," in which he pictures the ideal State and outlines his scheme of education, which is built on ideals of both Spartan and Athenian citizenship. From Sparta comes the thought of an education which shall be controlled by the State from birth; while Athens adds the aesthetical aspects to those ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... Ancient prejudices must be destroyed, antiquated customs changed, depraved affections corrected, inveterate vices eradicated. For this, a strong force and a vehement impulse will be necessary.... Citizens, the inflexible austerity of Lycurgus created the firm basis of the Spartan republic. The feeble and trusting disposition of Solon plunged Athens into slavery. This parallel contains the ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... which he regarded as "beyond the Constitution." (Jefferson's "Works," Vol. IV, p. 198.) Quite different was the language of his more imperialistic contemporaries. Gouverneur Morris said, "France will not sell this territory. If we want it, we must adopt the Spartan policy and obtain it by steel, not by gold."[51] During February, 1803, the United States Senate debated the closing of the Mississippi to American commerce. "To the free navigation of the Mississippi we had an undoubted right from nature and from ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... sought the repose of their Spartan pillows. The Captain forgot, in his zeal for Spanish dominion, that daring Sir Francis Drake, in days even then out of the memory of man, piloted the "Golden Hind" into Drake's Bay. He landed near San Francisco in 1578, and remained till the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... Spartan lawgiver, made no law against ingratitude, it is said, because he conceived that no one could be so irrational as to be unthankful ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... art, that while we viewed, Of Sparta's sons the lot severe, We caught the Spartan fortitude, And saw ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... the Spartan mothers with one voice, while the other sisters danced round them, and Kate patted the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... their children were very seldom used. People who said "Daddy dear," or "Jim dear," were under suspicion. "They fight like cats and dogs when no one else is around" was the universal comment on a family whose members were very free of their terms of affection. We were a Spartan lot. We did not believe in letting our wives and children know that they were an important ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... to you, must be so to me. There need be no scruple, because, though I used sometimes to buffoon to myself, loving a quibble as well as the barbarian himself (Shakspeare, to wit)—'that, like a Spartan, I would sell my life as dearly as possible'—it never was my intention to turn it to personal, pecuniary account, but to bequeath it to a friend—yourself—in the event of survivorship. I anticipated that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... oh! whither has Spartan courage fled? And why, proud Athens! above thine head Is the Mussulman crescent gleaming? Have thine ancient memories no avail? And art thou not fired at the legend tale Which reminds thee how the whole world grew pale, And recoiled ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... should touch upon the fact that the Athenian women were not only not in politics, but were not even in society, except a class which could be only fugitively mentioned, and we should freely admit that the Spartan women were the heroic inspiration of the men in all the virtues of patriotism at home as well as in the field. We should recognize the sort of middle station women held in the Roman republic, where they were not shut ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... being autonomous trading communities, as Greeks understood autonomy; but most of them until four years previously had acknowledged the suzerainty or rather federal leadership of Athens and now were acknowledging less willingly a Spartan supremacy established at first with Persian co-operation. Many of these cities, which had long maintained very close relations with the Persian governors of the nearer hinterland, not only shaped their ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... "account-dinner," is partaken of by any of the shareholders who may wish to be present, on which occasion the manager and agents lay before the company the condition and prospects of the mine, and a quarterly dividend (if any) is paid. There is a matter-of-fact and Spartan-like air about this feast which commands respect. The room in which it is held is uncarpeted, and its walls are graced by no higher works of art than the plans and sections of the mine. The food is excellent and substantial, ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... Spartan," said her brother in awe, as he looked on that thin, stern face. "Terry is your theory. If he disappoints you, he'll be simply a theory gone wrong. You'll cut him out of your life as if he were an algebraic equation and ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... and weakest woman bore With such serenity her husband's woes, Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore, Who saw their spouses kill'd, and nobly chose Never to say a word about them more— Calmly she heard each calumny that rose, And saw his agonies with such sublimity, That all the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... himself penniless, starving in the streets of a strange city. He handed me a letter, dated St. Louis, written by his wife. Some of the words were misspelled and the bad chirography was blotted as if by falling tears, but it breathed the spirit of a Roman matron, of a Spartan mother. Both the children were ill. She had obtained a little sewing and provided food and some medicine, but two months' rent was due and the landlord would turn them out unless it was promptly paid. She would do the best she could, and knew that her husband ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... domains of the westernmost tribes of the confederacy (in the Genesee country) formed the granary of the whole. And in consequence of the superior social and political organization just referred to, and the Spartan-like character incident to the forest life, the Six Nations, though not the most numerous, were beyond doubt the most formidable of the tribes then in alliance with the Crown. It was justly considered, therefore, that the only way to strike them effectively would be to ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... preserved the same Spartan simplicity. Eunice, however, carried her point in regard to the salad; for Abel, after tasting and finding it very palatable, decided that oil and vinegar might be classed in the catalogue of True Food. Indeed, his long abstinence from piquant flavors ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... moment in her shining gown, put the young attorney's Spartan resolution to rout. He stammered: "I ought to be on the ground before the mine-owners begin to open fire, and, besides—Alice is not ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... into his saddle. "The woods, I see, teach but half the Spartan learning. We'll part here, I think, ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... soldier's uniform and the barrack mess table are civilization's last word—would like no doubt to start a regime of National Kitchens and "Spartan Broth." They would point out the advantages thereby gained, the economy in fuel and food, if such huge kitchens were established, where every one could come for their rations of ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... came. They had never met; the poor man didn't care to have his quiet invaded by strange women, and to do the honours of London is no small task: yet this heroic gentleman obeyed orders without a murmur; and, leaving his artistic seclusion, shouldered his burden with the silent courage of a Spartan. ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... my compliments," said Pepe gayly, no better way of getting rid of the Spartan legislator occurring ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... those nerves upon which depends the mere animal courage is to be roused suddenly, in the depth of night, by a violent hand. The impulse of Gabriel, thus startled, was neither of timidity nor surprise. It was that of some Spartan boy not new to danger; with a slight cry and a fierce spring, the son's hand clutched at the father's throat. Dalibard shook him off with an effort, and a smile, half in approval, half in irony, played by the moonlight ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the same position, but makes up for it by fearless and unceasing work. He was hard pressed several times by Marshall and Oswald, sen., and had the worst of the tackling, but he generally came up smiling, and renewed hostilities with Spartan bravery. ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... that of Sterope in the eastern pediment. There is a substantial resemblance in the drapery, even to the arbitrary little fold in the neck; but the garment here is entirely open on the right side, after the fashion followed by Spartan maidens, whereas there it is sewed together from the waist down; there is here no girdle; and the broad, flat expanse of cloth in front observable there is here narrowed by two ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... trail. Now it looked as if chance had offered him an easier lot; he could apparently choose between the privations of the wilderness and civilized comfort, but while he grappled with a certain longing he knew this was not so. He had adopted the pioneers' Spartan code; one must stand by one's bargain, and do the thing one ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... of the Spartan Palaestra is, Strip or depart; but you are like the giant Antaeus, and will not let me depart unless I ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... mountains. If kept, the mother had charge of the child until seven if a boy, and still longer if a girl. At the beginning of the eighth year, and until the boy reached the age of eighteen, he lived in a public barrack, where he was given little except physical drill and instruction in the Spartan virtues. His food and clothing were scant and his bed hard. Each older man was a teacher. Running, leaping, boxing, wrestling, military music, military drill, ball-playing, the use of the spear, fighting, stealing, and laconic speech ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... they may destroy their own political freedom.(481) The Achean league, which under the leadership of Aratos, the "enemy of tyrants," had come into existence, promising so much hope, beheld itself later, and mainly through fear of the contagious effects of Spartan socialism under Cleomenes, compelled to unite with the Macedonians, that is, to give themselves ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher |
