Apophthegmata Laconica

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

Being asked what freeborn boys had best learn, he said, Those things which may help them when they become men. [*](Cf. the note on Moralia, 213 D (67), supra. )

When someone inquired for what reason the Spartans drank so little, he said,So that others may not deliberate over us, but we over others.

Leotychidas, the son of Ariston, in answer to a man who said that the sons of Demaratus were speaking ill of him, remarked, Egad, I don’t wonder; for not one of them could ever speak a good word. [*](The same story is found in Diogenes Laertius, ii. 35 (of Socrates), and in Stobaeus, Florilegium, xix. 5 (of Plato).)