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Spartan   /spˈɑrtən/   Listen
Spartan

adjective
1.
Of or relating to or characteristic of Sparta or its people.
2.
Resolute in the face of pain or danger or adversity.
3.
Unsparing and uncompromising in discipline or judgment.  Synonym: severe.  "A hefty six-footer with a rather severe mien" , "A strict disciplinarian" , "A Spartan upbringing"
4.
Practicing great self-denial.  Synonyms: ascetic, ascetical, austere.  "A desert nomad's austere life" , "A spartan diet" , "A spartan existence"






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"Spartan" Quotes from Famous Books



... cloth called bear's-skin; a high-peaked cap of raccoon-skin, the long bushy tail switching over behind; raw-hide leggings; grim stubble chin; and to end, a double-barreled gun in hand—a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman, of Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners and sentiments; and, as the sequel may show, not less acquainted, in a Spartan way of his own, with philosophy and books, than ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... describe. He did not know very much himself, but what little he did know he kept altogether to himself. He had no father or mother, no uncle, aunt, brother or sister, no cousin even whom he could mention in a cursory way to his dearest friend. He suffered, no doubt;—but with Spartan consistency he so hid his trouble from the world that no one knew that he suffered. Those with whom he lived, and who speculated often and wondered much as to who he was, never dreamed that the silent man's reticence was a burden to himself. At no special conjuncture ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... the living-quarters of the crew, kept spotlessly clean and tidy, yet Spartan-like in their simplicity. Two of the men were sound asleep in their bunks. Three more, who were playing cards at a plain deal table, glanced up from their game as the British lads passed by; but their interest was of brief duration, and ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... check The lingering night retards. But if to these High realms of nature the cold curdling blood About my heart bar access, then be fields And stream-washed vales my solace, let me love Rivers and woods, inglorious. Oh for you Plains, and Spercheius, and Taygete, By Spartan maids o'er-revelled! Oh, for one, Would set me in deep dells of Haemus cool, And shield me with his boughs' o'ershadowing might! Happy, who had the skill to understand Nature's hid causes, and beneath his feet All terrors cast, and death's relentless ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... commemorative of the Spartan valor that has made Thermopylae a name forever, serves to show the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... chair, and saying "My son!" put her hands upon Lannes shoulders and kissed him on the forehead. She was fair like her son, and much less than fifty years of age. There was no stoop in her shoulders and but little gray in her hair. Her eyes were anxious, but John saw in them the Spartan determination that marked the ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... nodded. One was counting his gains, which amounted to almost threepence. The loser wore a brave air of indifference, as behoved a reckless soldier taking loss or gain in a Spartan spirit. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... never was a subject, but was always an equal. He fought, not for Helen, but for his oath's sake. The dispute waxes hot; the calm dignity of Teucer easily discomfits the Spartan braggart, who departs to bring aid. Meanwhile Tecmessa returns with the child whom Teucer in a scene of consummate pathos bids kneel at his father's side, holding in his hand a triple lock of hair—Teucer's, his mother's, his own; this sacred symbol, if violated, would bring a curse on any who ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... and even Aunt Hitty was not proof against the magic of Araminta's smile. The girl's face had the creamy softness of a white rose petal, but her cheeks bloomed with the flush of health and she had a most disconcerting trick of blushing. With Spartan thoroughness, Miss Mehitable constantly strove to cure Araminta of this distressing fault, but as yet she had ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... she would willingly have endured the pain to be made of so much importance, and said to be better than a Spartan, which must doubtless ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... others laugh and talk incessantly. My inkstand, pen, and small handwriting amuse them very much. Miss K., the typical American travelling lady, who is encountered everywhere from the Andes to the Pyramids, tireless, with an indomitable energy, Spartan endurance, and a genius for attaining everything, and myself, a limp, ragged, shoeless wretch, complete the group, and our heaps of saddles, blankets, spurs, and gear tell of real travelling, past and future. It is a most picturesque sight by the light ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... Whipped and burnt Whipped to death Slaves treatment of Slave trade Sleeping in clothes Slitting of ears Smoothing iron on girl's backs Sophistry of slaveholders South Carolina laws of " " medical college Southern dogs and horses Spartan slavery Speece, Rev. Conrad opposed to emancipation Spirit of laws Springfield, S.C. Starvation of a female slave " " slaves Statement of a physician State, abuse of power in Stealing of freemen Stevenson, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... once; yet the land of Priam lives only in song. Thebes thought so once; yet her hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to commemorate. So thought Palmyra; where is she? So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan; yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, and enervate Ottoman. In his hurried march, Time has but looked at their imagined immortality, and all its vanities, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... war, hallowed by the very purity of motive and intention with which our American Manhood took up its burden, led us nationally unto those heights of moral perspective and spiritual vision known only to him who toils upon the hill of Sacrifice. No Spartan of Athenian fields, no Regulus of Rome or Nathan Hale, was nobler, higher motived or less afraid than our own heroic ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... I have talked over these things with her many a time; and where I would fain be, she would fain be also. She sent me out with my virgin honor, as the Spartan mother did her boy with the shield, saying, 'Come back either with this, or upon this;' and one or the other I must do, if I would meet her either in this life or in the next. But in the meanwhile do not mistake me; my life is God's, and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... quarter most the skillful Greeks annoy, Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy: Thou, from this tower defend th'important post; There Agamemnon points his dreadful host, That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain, And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train. Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given, Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven. Let others in the field their arms employ, But stay my Hector here, and ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... true. Maria and Telesilla led the women in battle and disciplined them in peace. But the world does not turn to Sparta for its ideal of a pre-Christian republic, and the Suffragists of our day do not propose to emulate the Spartan Amazon and hew their way to political ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... the time of Artaxerxes II. onwards, it was the Greek hoplites and peltasts who had always decided the issue of the Persian battles. The expeditions both by land and sea had been under the conduct of Athenian or Spartan generals—Conon, Chabrias, Iphi-crates, Agesilas, Timotheus, and their pupils; and again also it was to the Greeks—to the Rhodian Mentor and to, Memnon—that Ochus had owed his successes. The older nations—Egypt, Syria, Chaldaea, and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... consisted of Stacy's lifting that young gentleman bodily from his bunk and standing him upright in the open doorway. But Barker was accustomed to this Spartan process, and after a moment's balancing with closed lids like an unwrapped mummy, he sat down in the doorway and began to dress. He at first demurred to their departure except all together—it was so unfraternal; but eventually he allowed himself to be persuaded out of it and into his clothes. ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... were at this time the Girondists, bent on the suppression of royalty, and headed by Brissot, who agitated France by his writings in favor of a republic, while Madame Roland opened her salons for intrigues and cabals,—a bright woman, "who dreamed of Spartan severity, Roman ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... was proud and conceited in the matter,—but not proud of having excited the admiration 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 it through ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope

... into the housekeeper of Sigmundskron, was busy with the preparations for the christening. A year of uninterrupted prosperity had made her a trifle more sleek than before, and though she still affected a Spartan simplicity of dress, her frock was made of better materials than formerly, and her cap was adorned with black ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... and of course made but feeble resistance. The barbarians advanced from conquering to conquer. Alaric, leader of the Goths, invaded Greece at the head of a numerous army. Degenerate soldiers guarded the pass where three hundred Spartan heroes had once arrested the Persian hosts, and fled as Alaric approached. Even at Thermopylae no resistance was made. The country was laid waste with fire and sword. Athens purchased her preservation at an enormous ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... obtained possession. Perceiving, at length, that the animal proceeded systematically in this sort of behaviour, he used to amuse his friends, by causing the spaniel to give proofs of her sagacity in the Spartan art of privately stealing; putting, of course, the shopkeepers where he meant she should exercise her faculty on their guard ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... 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, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... The Spartan eyes his Helen's charms, By the best blood of Greece recaptured; Round that fair form his glowing arms— (A second bridal)—wreathe enraptured. "Woe waits the work of evil birth— Revenge to deeds unblest is given! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... should imagine himself another Leonidas, and us his Spartan band, and want us to die around him, and start another Thermopylae down her in the mountains, some place," suggested Kent Edwards, "you would cheerfully pass in your checks along with the rest, so as to make the thing ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... nearly seen. But the familiar reader of our author will not be surprised to find the "walking eye-ball" simply sheltered, and the "endless experimenter with no past at my back" housed without ornament. Such a reader will have felt the Spartan severity of this intellect, and have noticed that the realm of this imagination is rather sculpturesque than pictorial, more Greek than Italian. Therefore he will be pleased to alight at the little gate, and hear ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... he soon perceived Herod's blind side, so he said and did every thing that might please him, and thereby became one of his most intimate friends; for both the king and all that were about him had a great regard for this Spartan, on account ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... indicating that any injustice will be done the prisoners. I'm sure that neither Master Cap nor myself has any cause of complaint since we have given ourselves up to Master Arrowhead, who reminds me of a Roman or a Spartan by his virtues and moderation; but ye'll be remembering that usages differ, and that our scalps may be lawful sacrifices to appease the manes of fallen foes, unless you ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... editor has tried to find true stories rather out of the beaten paths of history; the narrative of John Tanner, for instance, is probably true, but the book in which his adventures were published is now rather difficult to procure. For 'A Boy among the Red Indians,' 'Two Cricket Matches,' 'The Spartan Three Hundred,' 'The Finding of Vineland the Good,' and 'The Escapes of Lord Pitsligo,' the editor is himself responsible, as far as they do not consist of extracts from the original sources. Miss May Kendall translated or adapted Casanova's ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... and his arm most lovingly encircling the churn dash, which no doubt in his dreams he mistook for the taper waist of Grace, when the loud laugh of the old man and his "helps," who had now risen, roused him. He got up and looked round him, but, with the Spartan firmness of his name-sake, said nothing, but went right off and married his cousin Prudence Prague, who could do all ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan

... that his brave blood flows in their veins. For history does not record, that any other of its long and shining line of heroes and martyrs, ever met death, anywhere on this globe, in a holier cause or a sublimer mood, than died this Spartan-like slave, more than three quarters of a ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke

... it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not 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 meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... and the array of glorious ornaments, and the armlets, and the bracelets, and the wreathed work, and the finger-rings, and the ornaments for the right hand, and the earrings, and the garments with scarlet borders, and the garments with purple grounds, and the shawls to be worn in the house, and the Spartan transparent dresses, and those made of fine linen, and the purple ones, and the scarlet ones, and the fine linen, interwoven with gold and purple, and the light ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr

... 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. A trail ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... dear?" asked auntie, tenderly. "Are you in such pain?" for she knew that Cricket was a little Spartan in ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow

... to make a man of him—un homme," he said to Glafira Petrovna "and not only a man, but a Spartan." This plan he began to carry out by dressing his boy in Highland costume. The twelve-year-old little fellow had to go about with bare legs, and with a cock's feather in his cap. The Swedish governess was replaced by a young tutor from Switzerland, who was acquainted ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... never would permit any one to talk with him about himself, and enthusiastic admirers of his genius commonly met with a rather cold reception. He repelled everything in the shape of a compliment. Dr. Edward Emerson says somewhere that his father was used to eat whatever was set before him with Spartan-like indifference. This mistake may have arisen from the good quality of Mrs. Emerson's housekeeping, and the excellent fare which she provided for her husband and his friends. Emerson wished to bear the hardships of life without complaining, but he also knew that to make ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... a loyal friend. Dr. Parash, 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

... "Spartan girl! Proud Lucy!" she would say, smiling at me. "Graham says you are the most peculiar, capricious little woman he knows; but yet you are excellent; ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... hard on men to be sent straight from the comfort and warmth of a hospital or convalescent camp to a place as Spartan as this. Instead of having a bed to sleep on, the unfortunate "detail" found himself condemned to the floor boards of a bell tent, with a very meagre allowance of well-worn blankets. In cold weather the change was abrupt and trying, but of course it had to be made sooner or ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham

... there at all with such an insignificant force was a mistake. But the Government of Sparta, slaves to tradition, could not grasp the idea of the plans proposed by the great Athenian. They were half persuaded to recall Leonidas, but hesitated to act until it was too late. The Spartan chief and his few hundred warriors died at their post in self-sacrificing obedience to the letter of their orders. The Persians poured over the Pass and inundated the plains of Attica. The few Athenians who had persisted in defending the Acropolis of Athens made only ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... of the Prussian King as he sat by the piano was anything but prepossessing. A little, crabbed, spare old man, attired with Spartan simplicity, in a faded blue coat, whose red facings were smudged brown with the Spanish snuff he so liberally took; thin lips, prominent jaws, receding forehead, and eyes of supernatural keenness glaring from under shaggy brows; a battered cocked hat, and a thick ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... clothes off my back. All the same, I hung on to the money as hard as I could, because I would rather die than give up anything of theirs I had got hold of; and so I held out bravely for quite a while, not giving in when they struck me, or even when they bent my fingers back. In fact, I was like some Spartan who lets himself be whipped as a test of his endurance: but unfortunately it wasn't at Sparta that I was doing this thing, but at Athens, and with the toughest sort of an Athenian gambling crowd; and so at last, when actually fainting, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... store for her. Much to her surprise, everybody had been particularly nice to her that morning. Several girls had given her their addresses and asked her to write to them, Miss Bowes had been kindness itself, and even Miss Teddington, whose conduct was generally of a Spartan order, when bidding her good-bye in the study, had actually bestowed an abrupt peck of a kiss, a mark of favour never before known in the annals of the school. To be sure, she had followed it with a warning against relapsing into loud ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... and political rights are abused, our women are robbed of their womanhood and their chastity is insulted, our aspirations are banded and proscription is held up to our eyes wherever we go, and enforced against us with Egyptian exactness and Spartan severity, and the most vexatious and grievous fact of all is, that the strong arm of the law of the land loses its power when it comes our turn to receive justice. The law either plays truant, or openly acknowledges ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various

... Hellenic blood, and were frequented by spectators from all parts of the Grecian world. They were celebrated at Olympia, on the banks of the Alpheus, in the territory of Elis. The origin of the festival is lost in obscurity; but it is said to have been revived by Iphitus, king of Elis, and Lycurgus the Spartan legislator, in the year 776 B.C.; and, accordingly, when the Greeks at a later time began to use the Olympic contest as a chronological era, this year was regarded as the first Olympiad. It was celebrated at ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... throat; coerce &c. 744; give no quarter &c. (pitiless) 914a. Adj. severe; strict, hard, harsh, dour, rigid, stiff, stern, rigorous, uncompromising, exacting, exigent, exigeant[obs3], inexorable, inflexible, obdurate, austere, hard-headed, hard-nosed, hard-shell [U.S.], relentless, Spartan, Draconian, stringent, strait-laced, searching, unsparing, iron- handed, peremptory, absolute, positive, arbitrary, imperative; coercive &c. 744; tyrannical, extortionate, grinding, withering, oppressive, inquisitorial; inclement &c. (ruthless) 914a; cruel &c. (malevolent) 907; haughty, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... her life her husband had basely deserted her. Neither Jake nor Joey was to be seen. The instrument of execution, a small, twig-like branch from the lilac bush, was lying upon the doorstep. Mrs. Sawyer took it up with a Spartan air. If Jake could so meanly fly from his duty then she must so much the ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... always Turned Back against a month of uneasiness for you, but later I saw I could not do it much as I love you for the element of danger to me is non-existent; it is merely an exciting adventure and you will have to believe me and not worry but be a Spartan mother. I would not count being laughed at and the loss of my own self respect if I really thought there was great danger, but I do not. You will not lose me and if I go now I can sit still next time and ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... that a modern Utopia must differ from the Utopias of any preceding age in being world-wide; it is not, therefore, to be the development of any special race or type of culture, as Plato's developed an Athenian-Spartan blend, or More, Tudor England. The modern Utopia is to be, before all things, synthetic. Politically and socially, as linguistically, we must suppose it a synthesis; politically it will be a synthesis of once widely different forms of government; socially and morally, a synthesis of a great variety ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... pleasure, or any business, or any holiness of duty, other or loftier than that of war. If it were possible that, under the amenities of a Grecian sky, too fierce a memento could whisper itself of torrid zones, under the stern discipline of the Doric Spartan it was that you looked for it; or, on the other hand, if the lute might, at intervals, be heard or fancied warbling too effeminately for the martial European key of the Grecian muses, amidst the sweet blandishments it was of Ionian groves that you arrested ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... There was a rapidly developing lump over one eye, but his expression remained unchanged. Josephine approached him with happy gurgles. Her heart was filled with womanly sympathy, but her soul remained undaunted. She was of the Spartan stuff that sends sons to the war, and holds a reception for them if they return—from victory—on their shields. She cooed in conscious imitation of Fraulein's best manner. "Now, ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... pressing tightly or unequally. The word enceinte, by which a pregnant woman is designated, meant, originally, without a cincture,—that is, unbound. The Roman matrons, so soon as they conceived, were obliged to remove their girdles. Lycurgus caused the enactment of the Spartan law, that pregnant women should wear large dresses, so as not to prejudice the free development of the precious charges of which nature had rendered them the momentary depositaries. Stays or corsets may be used, in a proper manner, during the first five or six months ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... they grew impatient with the long delay. They weren't interested in seeing other nations going over the top—the same nations who had been over so many times; they wanted to see their sons and brothers at once given the opportunity to share the wounds and the danger. Their attitude was Spartan and splendid; they demanded a curtailment of their respite that they might find themselves afloat on the crimson tide. The cry of the civilians in America was identical with that of their men in France. "Let them take off our khaki or else hurry ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... be fair, as the saying is, she is commonly a fool: if proud, scornful, sequiturque superbia formam, or dishonest, rara est concordia formae, atque pudicitiae, "can she be fair and honest too?" [5732] Aristo, the son of Agasicles, married a Spartan lass, the fairest lady in all Greece next to Helen, but for her conditions the most abominable and beastly creature of the world. So that I would wish thee to respect, with [5733]Seneca, not her person but qualities. "Will you say that's ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... steal! That's a command Which grips us with an iron hand; And "he who prigs what isn't his'n, When he is cotched shall go to prison!" So runs the Cockney doggerel, clear If ungrammatical, austere, With not a saving clause to qualify Its rigid Spartan rule, or mollify Theft's Nemesis. Thou shalt not steal! At least,—ahem!—well, all must feel That property in thoughts and phrases, The verbal filagree that raises Flat fustian into "oratory," And makes the pulpit place of glory, Such property is not so easy To settle, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various

... this quest of the Cave of Gold might mean—hardships, dangers, even death for those she loved. But she was of pioneer stock, had often seen her dearest go forth to face the dangers of the unknown wilderness; and, at last, with something of Spartan-like fortitude, she turned ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... there must be one man in all the city who was not corrupted, who did not learn extravagance and self-indulgence, who practiced as well as preached the life of faith! And so, again and again, he and Corydon would renew the pledges of their courtship-days—pledges to a discipline of Spartan sternness. ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... refuge 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

... staring fixedly at a single ray of light that came streaming in through a small, barred window, then glanced sidewise at his fellow victims, who with Spartan indifference sat waiting for the end of all things. It ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... thing in the Prussian system was astonishing to the Silesians, and soon gained a secret power over their minds. This was the Spartan spirit of devotion on the part of the King's servants, which appeared so frequently even among the humblest officials; for instance, the revenue collectors, never popular even before the introduction of the French system. In this case ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... home 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 mutual helpfulness. Books ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet

... Ideal; and the nation continually cherished and cultivated and refined this Ideal with impulses from groves of Arcadia, vales of Tempe, and flowery slopes of Attica, from the manliness of Olympic Games and the loveliness of Spartan Helens. They cherished and cultivated and refined it, because here they set up their altars to known gods and worshipped attributes which they could understand. The Ideal was their religion, and the Art which came from it the expression of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... if not twenty, years since my father commenced the composition of an historical romance on the subject of Pausanias, the Spartan Regent. Circumstances, which need not here be recorded, compelled him to lay aside the work thus begun. But the subject continued to haunt his imagination and occupy his thoughts. He detected in it singular ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... 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 ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... mother was so thankful for the merciful haste of it that she could not, until long after, recall herself to mourn. And she did honestly mourn. The little John was glad of that. So ill and tired had she been for years and yet so bound upon the rack of her husband's Spartan theories for her, that John thought he could not have borne it if she had not adored her righteous tormentor, if she had had to look on him as her master, not her lord by love. It seemed to him he was always ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... the mulberry, howls for joy, and carries it off. And thus Death robs the poor woman of her son; America, of her husband; the Shylock of the village, of her home; and the wolf, of her last head of cattle. And this were enough to age even a Spartan woman. Late in the evening, after she had related at length of her sorrows, three mattresses—all she had—are laid on the straw mat near each other, and the little girl had to ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... 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, but ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... qualities of trees and valleys. Were it liable to be seized by the discursive and ratiocinative intellect, the most eminent statesman or lawyer or general would excel too in the capacity to appreciate beauty; the Roman would have shone in arts as in arms; the Spartan would not have been so barren where the Athenian was so prolific. But beauty is felt, not intellectually apprehended or logically deduced. Its presence is acknowledged by a gush from the soul, by a joyous sentimental recognition, not by a discernment of the understanding. When we exclaim, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... is, if he hit the ball and worked hard enough to deserve it. The thought of the little boy whose mother gave him a nickle every time he took his castor oil manfully came to his mind as he sat and gazed out the window. When asked what he did with the nickles, the Spartan youth had replied: "Buy more castor oil with it." Joe wearily dragged one of his stock ledgers from the ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... examining a patient's chest stop all at once, as he brought out a particular sound with a tap on the collarbone, in the attitude of a pointer who has just come on the scent or sight of a woodcock. You remember the Spartan boy, who, with unmoved countenance, hid the fox that was tearing his vitals beneath his mantle. What he could do in his own suffering you must learn to do for others on whose vital organs disease has fastened its devouring teeth. It is a terrible thing to take ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... enlargement of woman's thought in all directions. From our laboratories, libraries, observatories, schools of medicine and law, universities of science, art and literature, she is advancing to the examination of the problems of life, with an eye single only to the glory of truth. Like the Spartan of old she has thrown her spear into the thickest of the fray, and will fight gloriously in the midst thereof till she regains her own. No specious sophistry or vain delusion—no time-honored tradition or untenable doctrine ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... reproach. To see her so quietly resigned, you would have supposed that she had been both chamber-maid and cook all her life, that is if you never tasted her dishes! I shall always remember her first dinner. O, the Spartan broth of that day! She must have gotten the receipt from ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... a thick soup, rich in dark-hued garden produce, and a large hunk of bread—except on Thursdays, when a pat of butter was served out to each boy instead of that Spartan broth—that "brouet noir des Lacedemoniens," as we ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... physically in the prize fighter who "doesn't know when he is beaten," in the race horse that throws an unexpected dash into the last stretch even after his last ounce of force is gone, in the Spartan soldier who exclaimed "If I fall I ...
— 21 • Frank Crane

... of the State, the heroes of the French Revolution rather perceived in social defects the source of political abuses. Thus Robespierre saw in great poverty and great riches only an obstacle to pure democracy. Consequently, he desired to establish a general Spartan frugality. ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... best and meekest woman bore With such serenity her husband's woes, Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore, Who saw their spouses killed, 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 world ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... Account of the Spartan Commonwealth, [1] speaking of the Behavior of their young Men in the Streets, says, There was so much Modesty in their Looks, that you might as soon have turned the eyes of a Marble Statue upon you as theirs; and that ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... head of 4,500 men, to meet Santa Anna; and on the 20th, took up a position at BUENA VISTA, the great advantages of which had previously struck his notice. On the 22d, a Mexican army of 20,000 made its appearance, and Santa Anna summoned the American commander to surrender. General Taylor, with Spartan brevity, "declined acceding to the request." The next morning the ten-hour's conflict began. We shall not attempt to rehearse the history of that fearful battle: it is written forever on the memory of the nation. The advance of the hostile ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... dining-room was quite a luxurious apartment, so was the "saint's" study—a den with a soft Eastern carpet, a big writing-table, a high porcelain stove of chocolate and white, and silk-upholstered settees. From this den a door opened into the "holy" man's sleeping-room, an apartment of spartan plainness save for its big stove, a replica of the ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... Dr. Opimian. The 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 over ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... not begin there. A like adventure chanced often at the parsonage, and, at nine years of age, I reigned king absolute over a nursery full of her Majesty's subjects who called me brother, and quailed before my nod like Helots before the crest of a Spartan. But, as I say, all that is neither here ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... and skipped.' 'Fine?' asks Mart, 'fine? I thought you said it was jail sentence.' 'Well,' says I, 'it amounts to the same thing; she can't pay her fine, and that damn reform judge, wanting to make a record as a Spartan, has committed her to jail till it is paid!' 'So they go free, and she goes to jail, because she is poor,' says Mart.' That's what your reform means,' says I, 'or I let her and the boy loose and lose my job. And oh, Mart,' says I, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... we were bid. I began to whistle cheerily, and turning my back on my precious grandson, called Josephine's attention to the beauties of the landscape in a series of philosophic utterances. As for Winona herself, she was Spartan enough to restore the little lad to his baby-carriage, and to busy herself in reflecting whether the spot of blood on her robin's-egg blue morning wrapper would wash out. Within three minutes more Master Baby had ceased to sob, and was playing ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... under five or six heads: I, the characters; II, the plan; III, the style; IV, the imitations of other writings of Plato; V; the more general relation of the Laws to the Republic and the other dialogues; and VI, to the existing Athenian and Spartan states. ...
— Laws • Plato

... in Lycurgus; and reign he did for a time, but declared that the kingdom belonged to the child of his sister-in-law the queen, and that he himself should exercise the regal jurisdiction only as his guardian; the Spartan name for which office is prodicus. Soon after, an overture was made to him by the queen, that she would herself in some way destroy the infant, upon condition that he would marry her when he came to the crown. Abhorring the woman's wickedness, he nevertheless ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... but a shrewd, cold business man, far shrewder than his brother gave him credit for. He was already richer than any two of the other children put together, but he chose to keep his counsel and to pretend modesty of fortune. He realized the danger of envy, and preferred a Spartan form of existence, putting all the emphasis on inconspicuous but very ready and very hard cash. While Lester was drifting Robert was ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... parent turf they rest, Far from the gory field, Borne to a Spartan mother's breast On many a bloody shield. The sunshine of their native sky Smiles sadly on them here, And kindred eyes and hearts watch by ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... insulted virtue effaces the smile of complacency, which his eloquent periods are wont to raise, when I read his voluptuous reveries. Is this the man, who, in his ardour for virtue, would banish all the soft arts of peace, and almost carry us back to Spartan discipline? Is this the man who delights to paint the useful struggles of passion, the triumphs of good dispositions, and the heroic flights which carry the glowing soul out of itself? How are these mighty sentiments lowered when he ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... this Martin had already reasoned out, and some of it he reasoned out later. In the meantime he worked, taking no recreation except when he went to see Ruth, and living like a Spartan. He paid two dollars and a half a month rent for the small room he got from his Portuguese landlady, Maria Silva, a virago and a widow, hard working and harsher tempered, rearing her large brood of children somehow, and drowning her sorrow and ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... Who heard her flight with imprecations dire.— See! beauteous Helen, with her Trojan swain— The royal youth that fed his amorous pain, With ardent gaze, on those destructive charms That waken'd half the warring world to arms— Yonder, behold Oenone's wild despair, Who mourns the triumphs of the Spartan fair! The injured husband answers groan for groan, And young Hermione with piteous moan Orestes calls; while Laodamia near Bewails her valiant consort's fate severe.— Adrastus' daughter there laments her spouse Sincere and constant to her nuptial vows; Yet, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... against the luxury of the young men of the military school. After a little he turned the conversation on Mania, and the present education of the young Maniotes, drawing a comparison between it and the ancient Spartan system of education. His observations on this head be told me he intended to embody in a memorial to be presented to the Minister of War. All this, depend upon it, will bring him under the displeasure of his comrades; and it will be lucky ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... took some little dinner upstairs, sir. I am a moderate man, and can live, if need be, like a Spartan; but to join such good company I will gladly use the knife and fork again. You will excuse the traveller's dress? I keep a room here, which I use only occasionally, and am at present ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Had his counsel prevailed, the nation would have found in 1881 what they discovered only in 1897, that they needed training and concentration to hold their own, and that the path of conquest of their ancient estate was set with obstacles which only Spartan discipline and endurance could clear away. As it has happened, the lesson has been learned only after all the competing elements have had theirs and are on the way to the primacy in the Balkans which the Greeks thought the heritage of their ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... it any more than they did, and as we three walked up and down we heard him whining. And Alice kept saying, 'I am so cold! Isn't he coming yet?' And H. O. wanted to come out and jump about to warm himself. But we told him he must learn to be a Spartan boy, and that he ought to be very thankful he hadn't got a beastly fox eating his inside all the time. H. O. is our little brother, and we are not going to let it be our fault if he grows up a milksop. Besides, it was not really cold. It was his knees—he ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit

... on the rangeside or in the bush, where women are scarce. Vane had lived in Spartan simplicity, practising the ascetic virtues, as a matter of course. He had had no time for sentiment, his passions had remained unstirred; and now he was seven and twenty, sound and vigorous of body, and, as a rule, level of head. At length, however, there was to be a change. He had earned ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... WAS not beloved of the villagers, But all because I spoke my mind, And met those who transgressed against me With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing Nor secret griefs nor grudges. That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised, Who hid the wolf under his cloak, Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly. It is braver, I think, to snatch the wolf forth And fight him openly, even in the street, Amid dust and howls of pain. The tongue may be an unruly member— But silence poisons ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... much of a Spartan as he thought. His long association with the Lakes and their friends might, you'd think, have brought him the consolatory reflection that a woman who earned even a successful chorus-girl's wages, needn't be pitied ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... What a modern writer has written about Mrs. Adams might possibly be applicable to many a colonial mother who kept no record of her daily effort to lead her children in the path of righteousness and noble service: "Mrs. Adams's influence on her children was strong, inspiring, vital. Something of the Spartan mother's spirit breathed in her. She taught her sons and daughter to be brave and patient, in spite of danger and privation. She made them feel no terror at the thought of death or hardships suffered for one's country. She read ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... . The public eye will be on Occoquan for the next few weeks, to find out how these women bear up under the Spartan treatment that is in store for them. If they have deliberately sought martyrdom, as some critics have been unkind enough to suggest, they have it now. And if their campaign, in the opinion of perhaps the great majority of the public, has been misguided, admiration for ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... "classic revival," whimsical beyond description. Aeneas hastened to deposit his aged father in a heap on the gravel and ran after the Sylvan Nymphs; Theseus gave the Minotaur a respite; Themistocles was bending over the dying Spartan, who was coming to life; Venus Pudica was waltzing about the diagonal basin with Antinous; Ascanius was playing marbles with the infant Hercules. In this unreal phantasmagoria it was a relief to me to see walking in the area ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Prussianism piecemeal. It must take it as a whole, its lieutenants included, or not at all. Lieutenant von Foerstner is as typical a product of the Prussian system as the London policeman is of our own; and if we adopt Prussian or Spartan methods, we must run the risk of being ruled by him. "No other nation," says Dr. Sadler, "by imitating a little bit of German organisation can hope thus to achieve a true reproduction of the spirit of German institutions. The fabric ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... Sea. Sparta at the same time was leader in a confederacy of independent states, among which were nearly all the Peloponnesian states, besides some of those in northern Greece, those of Magna Graecia and Sicily. Athens was strong in her navy, which comprized 300 galleys, while the Spartan strength lay in her land forces. The treasury of Athens was full, that of Sparta weak. After the war, the walls of Athens were demolished and she was deprived of her foreign possessions. The government set ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... above, esteemed themselves of the serpent race. The Lacedaemonians likewise referred themselves to the same original. Their city is said of old to have swarmed with [509]serpents. The same is said of the city Amyclae in Italy, which was of Spartan original. They came hither in such abundance, that it was abandoned by the [510]inhabitants. Argos was infested in the same manner, till Apis came from Egypt, and settled in that city. He was a prophet, the reputed son of Apollo, and a person of ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... of the Spartans 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 ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... lines, instead of presenting a continuous front, were distributed into three unequal bodies occupying various parts of the plain. Mardonius unhesitatingly seized his opportunity. He crossed the Asopos, ordered the Thebans to attack the Athenians, and with the bulk of his Asiatic troops charged the Spartan contingents. Here, as at Marathon, the superiority of equipment soon gave the Greeks the advantage: Mardonius was killed while leading the charge of the Persian guard, and, as is almost always the case ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... they bore the chill of death itself. One can but wonder whether that fell scourge of New England, that hereditary curse—consumption—did not have its first germs evolved and nourished in our Puritan ancestors by the Spartan custom of sitting through the long winter services in the ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... was King Friedrich II., or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people was Vater Fritz—Father Fred. A king every inch of him, though without the trappings of a king; in a Spartan simplicity of vesture. In 1786 his speakings and his workings came to finis in this world of time. Editors vaguely account this man the creator of the Prussian monarchy, which has since grown so large in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... difference among men, you know, father. Some wear their miseries like an order in their button-holes. Some do as the Spartan boy did when the ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... no foreign education and speaks no English. He is distinctively Chinese in his training and outlook. He is a man of force, capable of drastic methods, straightforward intellectually and physically, of unquestioned integrity and of almost Spartan life in a country where official position is largely prized for the luxuries it makes possible. For example, practically alone among Chinese provincial officials of the first rank he has no concubines. Not only ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey

... perhaps an excess, since the training of the children of that sex, hardly yielded to that of the male in laboriousness and fatigue. Be this confessed to be an extreme: but then it was in some measure compensated by its being universally allowed, that the Spartan women owed to it that beauty in which they excelled the rest of the Grecian women, who were themselves held, in that point, preferable to the rest of the world. Hellen was a Spartan. Yet the legislator of that people, did not so much as consider ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... "Bravo, Spartan!" cried Uncle Bob, as he stood looking on, when, after walking some distance, Uncle Dick insisted upon my taking off my jacket in a lane and ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... and selling them again, increasing it sometimes, sometimes diminishing it, and always running the risk of losing every penny of it in a day's disaster. But although she wondered, she could not help loving him the better for his odd combination of Spartan self-control and what appeared to her romantic and childish folly. Ralph interested her more than any one else in the world, and she often broke off in the middle of one of these economic discussions, in spite of their gravity, to consider some ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... old borderer and the Indian there was no such bellows to blow the fire of perseverance. None the less, these two did more than second us; they set the strenuous pace and held us to it; the Catawba Spartan-proud and uncomplaining; the old hunter no whit less tireless and enduring. At this far-distant day I can close my eyes and see the gaunt, leather-clad figure of Ephraim Yeates, striding on always in the lead and ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... like ours, in which senseless luxury, the result of wealth which has increased faster than the power of rightly using it, has attained such enormous proportions, and is threatening, in commercial communities especially, to drown all noble aspirations, and Spartan simplicity, and Christian self-devotion, in its muddy flood. Surely never was Gideon's test more wanted for the army of the Lord of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... her boy soldier. He was to her what Anita was to the Colonel, but being a stout-hearted woman she had sent her son away to be a soldier and had worn a smile at parting. There was a strain of the Spartan mother in this smiling daughter, wife, and mother ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... LE ON' I DAS, the celebrated Spartan leader who, with three hundred men, perished in the effort to resist the Persian hosts, at the mountain ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... and two very dirty towels were the only articles of household furniture in the place. I suppose Tim had his meals with the farmer who owned the barn. No inspired artist, toiling frenziedly with a masterpiece in a garret, ever lived a more Spartan life than Tim Gorman did in that barn. Whatever money he had was certainly not spent on his personal comfort. On the other hand, a good deal of money had been spent on tools and material of various kinds. Packing cases stood piled together ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... many times her eyes turned to the broad entrance across the sidewalk. She had telephoned to her father earlier in the afternoon; and he had promised faithfully to be ready at four o'clock for a spin up the drive behind Spartan. At three minutes past four the pucker made its first appearance; and now, several minutes later, it was quite distressing. Never before had he kept her waiting like this. She was conscious of the fact that ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... run to the officer and told him that he was in the service of Mr. —— a suspected man. The brave boy damned his sister for a blabbing b— for now said he the cause of Ireland is betrayed and ruined. Here are traits of Spartan virtues, that a modern British house of commons are past comprehending. A stronger proof of debasement cannot well be imagined in ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... preying cares. What slave is here, instantly to cool some cups of ardent Falernian in the passing stream? Who will tempt the vagrant wanton Lyde from her house? See that you bid her hasten with her ivory lyre, collecting her hair into a graceful knot, after the fashion of a Spartan maid. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... now to hide his dislike of me, nor to draw for me that cloak of suave composure over the fierce temper that is always gnawing at his vitals as surely as fox ever gnawed little Spartan. He sees that it is useless, I suppose. As I went upstairs to greet Madeleine, I laughed to myself to think how Fate had ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... non-slaveholders. I had somehow imbibed the opinion that, in the absence of slaves, there could be no wealth, and very little refinement. And upon coming to the north, I expected to meet with a rough, hard-handed, and uncultivated population, living in the most Spartan-like simplicity, knowing nothing of the ease, luxury, pomp, and grandeur of southern slaveholders. Such being my conjectures, any one acquainted with the appearance of New Bedford may very readily infer how palpably I must ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... the bright blaze gather, Heed not sleet nor cold,— Ye are Spartan soldiers, Stout and brave and bold: Never Xerxian army Yet subdued a foe, Who but asked a blanket On ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston

... Winkelberg. I became poignant and moving on the subject of Winkelberg's misfortunes, his trials, sufferings and, above all, his Spartan stoicism. It pleased me to do this. I felt that I was making some amends and that the thing reflected credit ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... I replied, with Spartan firmness. And then, on a sudden impulse: 'Don't you think we've both been rather mistaken, Mabel? I've been silly and presumptuous, because, of course, I'm nobody—just a penniless newspaper reporter. And you—you are very dear ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... appeared as Leonidas; and in his turn engrossed every eye, every thought of that vast assembly. A triple round of applause hailed every speech uttered by the generous Spartan. The painter of the Sabines, of Brutus, of the Horatii, of the Coronation, seemed to heed neither the noisy acclamations nor the deep silence that succeeded each other. Mute, motionless, transfixed, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various

... and often eyes; And sometimes, as from rock to rock she bounds 265 The Patriot nymph starts at imagined sounds, And, wildly pausing, oft she hangs aghast, Whether some old Swiss air hath checked her haste Or thrill of Spartan fife is ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... 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 ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... way from the drawing-rooms, or divans, he takes us through bedrooms and dressing-rooms furnished in Spartan simplicity, with the little iron bedsteads covered with bear-skins, and supplied with writing- tables and lamps, beside which repose the Bible, the Shakspeare, the Euclid, and the Breviary, which go with Captain ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... after periods, to do in caricature, under the figure of a Cat's;—horror and admiration not the sole feelings raised in him by the Field-Marshal.—For bodily nourishment he had "beer-soup;" a decided Spartan tone prevailing, wherever possible, in the breeding and treatment ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... out thy heart A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three To ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... bred out of the Spartan kinde, So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung With eares that sweepe away the morning dew, Crooke kneed, and dew-lapt, like Thessalian Buls, Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bels, Each vnder each. A cry more tuneable Was neuer hallowed to, nor ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... home and arriving in time for supper took his place at the table with mixed feelings, foremost among which was keen regret. Except for the company of his Scandinavian hired man and the latter's hard-featured wife, he had lived alone in Spartan simplicity, thinking of nothing but his farm; and his guests' arrival had revealed to him the narrowness of his life. They had brought him new desires and thoughts, besides recalling ideas he had long ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss



Words linked to "Spartan" :   severe, resolute, Greek, strict, Hellene, ascetic, Sparta, nonindulgent, abstemious



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