S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.

Lycurgus

[The Spartan lawgiver; lived, according to Aristotle, more than 850 B.C.; refusing the crown he had inherited, he visited foreign countries, and returned to Sparta, making many radical changes in the social and political system; having imposed a strong aristocratic constitution, by which domestic affairs were regulated by the state, he obtained from the people an oath that they would not alter his laws during his absence; and went into exile, from which he never returned.]

Try it in your own households.

When some one recommended democracy to him, and advised him to establish it in Sparta—PLUTARCH: Life.

To those who asked whether they should enclose Sparta in walls, he said, “That city is well fortified which has a wall of men instead of brick.”

The Spartans let their hair grow long, because Lycurgus said, “A large head of hair makes the handsome more graceful, and the ugly more terrible.”—Ibid.

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