Sparta.

"Either with it or upon it." Spartan mothers to their sons in regards to their shields.

"Because we fight close to the enemy." King Agesilaos when asked why their swords were so short.

"Why is it you Spartan women are the only ones who rule over your men?" An Athenian Woman. "Because we are the only women too who give birth to real men." a Spartan woman.

"In War." The inscription along with the name of the Spartan who died in combat. Spartans only got gravestones if they died in combat. Women got them if they died during child birth.

An old man wandering around the Olympic Games looking for a seat was jeered at by the crowd until he reached the seats of the Spartans, whereupon every Spartan younger than him, and some that were older, stood up and offered him their seat. The crowd applauded and the old man turned to them with a sigh, saying "All Greeks know what is right, but only the Spartans do it."

'As far as this can reach.'
When asked 'how far Sparta's boundaries stretched?', King Agesilaus' replied brandishing his spear.

'These are Sparta's walls.'
When asked why Sparta lacked fortifications, King Agesilaus' pointed to his men

'Not How Many But Where'
"The Spartans used to ask about the enemy, it was not important how many there are, but where the enemy was."
Plutarch (46-125 bc)

When a rich servant of the Persian King asked two Spartans why they would not befriend the Persian King who rewarded his friends and as they were men of merit, if they would only submit to him, he was sure the King would give them Greece to govern. This was their reply:
'A slave's life is all you understand, you know nothing of freedom. For if you did, you would have encouraged us to fight on, not only with our spear, but with everything we have.'

Afterwards (the two Spartan from the entry above) when they came to the Persian King's presence, the guards ordered them to fall down in homage and when they refused, force was used, the Spartan's resisted and this was their reply to the King:
'We bow down before no man.'

"Begin with your own family."
A man argued that Sparta should set up a democracy, this was Lykurgus reply:

To the man who was amazed at how modest King Agesilaus and the other Spartans' cloths and meals were, the king replyed:
'Freedom is what we reap from this way of life, my friend.'

'What splendid women's quarters."
When being drawn attention to the solid city-walls with its exceptionally strong construction, King Agesilaus remark.

Let the weeping be for cowards: but you child, I bury without a tear; you are my son, and Sparta's too.
Unamed: When a mother heard that her son died in the battle-line.

In making your escape, where is it your going to? Do you plan to creep back in here where you emerged from?
Opening her robe to expose her virginia, a mother confronts her son who had fled from a battle.

When asked whether it was advisable to build a defensive wall enclosing the city, Lycurgus answered, "A city is well-fortified which has a wall of men instead of brick."

King Charilaus, explaining why the list of Spartan laws was so short, said: "Men of few words require few laws."

King Demaratus, being annoyed by someone asking him who the most exemplary Spartan was, answered "He that is least like you."

When the Persians sent envoys to the Spartans demanding the traditional symbol of surrender, an offering of soil and water, the Spartans threw them into a deep well, suggesting that upon their arrival at the bottom, they could "Dig it out for yourselves."

On her husband Leonidas's departure for battle with the Persians at Thermopylae, Gorgo, Queen of Sparta asked what she should do. He advised her: "Marry a good man and bear good children."

When he was asked why he had come to fight such a huge host with so few men, Leonidas answered, "If numbers are what matters, all Greece cannot match a small part of that army; but if courage is what counts, this number is sufficient." On being again asked a similar question, he replied, "I have plenty, since they are all to be slain."

Also from Herodotus: "When the banished Samians reached Sparta, they had audience of the magistrates, before whom they made a long speech, as was natural with persons greatly in want of aid. Accordingly at this first sitting the Spartans answered them that they had forgotten the first half of their speech, and could make nothing of the remainder. Afterwards the Samians had another audience, whereat they simply said, showing a bag which they had brought with them, 'The bag wants flour.' The Spartans answered that they did not need to have said 'the bag'; however, they resolved to give them aid."

One famous example comes from the time of the invasion of Philip II of Macedon. With key Greek city-states in submission, he turned his attention to Sparta and sent a message: "If I win this war, you will be slaves forever." In another version, Philip proclaims: "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city." The Spartan ephors sent back a one word reply: "If." Subsequently, both Philip and Alexander would avoid Sparta entirely.

Demetrius I of Macedon was offended when the Spartans sent his court a single envoy, and exclaimed angrily, "What! Have the Lacedaemonians sent no more than one ambassador?" The Spartan responded, "Aye, one ambassador to one king."

Upon being asked to come hear a person who could perfectly imitate a nightingale, a Spartan answered, "I have heard the nightingale itself."

After an Athenian accused Spartans of being ignorant, the Spartan Plistoanax agreed: "What you say is true. We have learned none of your evil ways."

Xerxes: There will be no glory in your sacrifice. I will erase even the memory of Sparta from the histories. Every piece of Greek parchment shall be burned. And every Greek historian, and every scribe shall have their eyes pulled out, and their tongues cut from their mouth. Why, uttering the very name of Sparta, or Leonidas will be punishable by death. The world will never know you existed at all.
King Leonidas: The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and that before this battle is over, even a god-king can bleed.

When a speaker extended his remarks to a great length, and then asked for answers to report to his citizens, they said, "Report that you found it hard to stop speaking and we to listen."

In answer to the Thebans who were disputing with them over some matters, they said, "You should have less pride or more power."

To a man who was being punished, and kept saying, "I did wrong unwillingly," someone retorted, "Then take your punishment unwillingly."

When an Argive said once upon a time, "There are many tombs of Spartans in our country," a Spartan said, "But there is not a single tomb of an Argive in our country," indicating by this that the Spartans had often set foot in Argos, but the Argives had never set foot in Sparta.

A Spartan being asked what he knew, said, "How to be free."

A beggar asked alms of a Spartan, who said, "If I should give to you, you will be the more a beggar; and for this unseemly conduct of yours he who first gave you is responsible, for he thus made you lazy."

A Spartan, seeing a man taking up a collection for the gods, said that he did not think much of gods who were poorer than himself.

Another, on going to Athens, saw that the Athenians were hawking salt fish and dainties, collecting taxes, keeping public brothels, and following other unseemly pursuits, and holding none of them to be shameful. cWhen he returned to his own country, his fellow-citizens asked how things were in Athens, and he said, "Everything fair and lovely," speaking sarcastically and conveying the idea that among the Athenians everything is considered fair and lovely, and nothing shameful.

Once upon a time, ambassadors from Sparta arrived at the court of Lygdamis the despot. But as he tried to put them off and repeatedly postponed the interview, and, to crown all, it was asserted that he was in a delicate condition, the Spartans said, "Tell him, in God's name, that we have not come to wrestle with him, dbut to have a talk with him."

When someone, initiating a Spartan into the Mysteries, asked him what his conscience told him p421was the most unholy deed he had ever done, he said, "The gods know." And when the other became even more insistent, and said, "It is absolutely necessary that you tell," the Spartan asked in turn, "To whom must I tell it? To you or to the god?" And when the other said, "To the god," the Spartan said, "You go away then."

Another, in the thick of the fight, was about to bring down his sword on an enemy when the recall sounded, and he checked the blow. When someone inquired why, when he had his enemy in his power, he did not kill him, he said, "Because it is better to obey one's commander than to slay an enemy."