Agesilaus was very fond of his children; and it is reported that once toying with them he got astride upon a reed as upon a horse, and rode about the room; and being seen by one of his friends, he desired him not to speak of it till he had children of his own.
Lysander, when Dionysius sent him two gowns, and bade him choose which he would carry to his daughter, said, “She can choose best,” and so took both away with him.
A physician, after he had felt the pulse of Pausanias, and considered his constitution, saying, “He ails nothing,” “It is because, sir,” he replied, “I use none of your physic.”
Laconic Apophthegms. Of Pausanias the Son of Phistoanax.
When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, “I ’ll lay my life,” said he, “somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living.”
Anacharsis said a man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible favours and blessings of Fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.
