Agesipolis the son of Pausanias, when the Athenians appealed to the Megarians as arbitrators of the differences between them, said, It is a shame, Athenians, that those who were once the lords of all Greece should understand what is right and just less than the people of Megara.

Agis the son of Archidamus, when the Ephors gave orders, Go take the youth, and follow this man into his own country, and he shall guide thee to the very citadel, said: How can it be prudent to trust so many youths to the fidelity of him who betrays his own country? Being asked what art was chiefly learned in Sparta, To know, he replied, how to govern and to be governed, he used to say, The Spartans do not enquire how many the enemy are, but where they are. At Mantinea, being advised not to fight the enemy, who exceeded him in number, he said, It is necessary for him to fight a great many that would rule a great many. To one enquiring how many the Spartans were, Enough, he replied, to keep rascals at a distance. Marching by the walls of Corinth, and perceiving them to be high and strong and stretching out to a great length, he said, What women live there? To an orator that said speech was the best thing, he rejoined, You then, when you are silent, are worth nothing. When the Argives, after they had been once beaten, faced him more boldly than before; on seeing many of the allies disheartened, he said, Courage, sirs! for when we conquerors shake, what do you think is the condition of the conquered? To an ambassador from the Abderites, after he had ended his long speech, enquiring what answer he should carry to his city, he replied, This: As long as you talked, so long I quietly heard. Some commending the Eleans for exact justice in determining the prizes at the Olympian games, he said, What great wonder is it, that in four years they can be just one day? To some that told him he was envied by the heirs of the other royal family, Well, said he, their own misfortunes will torment them, and my own and my friends’ success besides. When one advised him to give the flying enemy room to run, he said, How shall we fight those that stand to it and resist, if we dare not engage those whom their cowardice makes fly? When one proposed a way to free Greece, well contrived indeed but hard to be brought about, he said, Friend, thy words want an army and a treasure. To one saying, Philip won’t let you set foot upon any other part of Greece, he returned, Sir, we have room enough in our own country. An ambassador from Perinthus to Lacedaemon, after a long tedious speech, asking what answer he should carry back to the Perinthians, he said, What but this? — that thou couldst hardly find an end to thy talk, and I kept silent. He went by himself ambassador to Philip; and Philip saying, What! but one? he replied, I am an ambassador but to one. An old man, observing that the ancient laws were neglected and that new evil customs crept in, said to him, when he was now grown old himself, All things here at Sparta are turned topsy-turvy. He replied with a joke: If it is so, it is agreeable to reason; for when I was a boy, I heard my father say that all things were then topsy-turvy; and he heard his father say the same; and it is no wonder if succeeding times are worse than the preceding; but it is a wonder if they happen to be better, or but just as good. Being asked how a man could be always free, he replied, If he contemns death.