300 quotes

View Quote [To Ephialtes, who turned traitor and volunteered to serve him] Unlike the cruel Leonidas who demanded that you stand, I require only that you kneel.

View Quote [To Leonidas] Instead ask yourself: "What should a free man do?"

View Quote [Xerxes is brought to Leonidas on a massive gold throne carried on the back of his servants] Let me guess. You must be ... Xerxes.

View Quote And so the boy, given up for dead, returns to his people, to sacred Sparta a king. Our king, Leonidas! It's been more than 30 years since the wolf and the winter cold. Now, as then, a beast approaches, patient and confident, savouring the meal to come. This beast is made of men and horses, swords and spears. An army of slaves vast beyond imagining, ready to devour tiny Greece, ready to snub out the world's one hope for reason and justice. A beast approaches, and it was King Leonidas himself who provoked it.

View Quote At age 7, as is customary in Sparta, the boy was taken from his mother and plunged into a world of violence, manufactured by 300 years of Spartan warrior society to create the finest soldiers the world has ever known. The agoge, as it's called, forces the boy to fight, starves him, forces him to steal ... and if necessary, to kill.

View Quote Because only Spartan women give birth to real men. [Response to Persian messenger questioning why Spartan women are allowed to address him]

View Quote Come back with your shield ... or on it. [Last words to her husband, Leonidas, before he and the 300 march off to the Hot Gates, reference to the Spartan saying "Εί τάν εί επί τάς" (Doric Greek: "Either it or on it") in reference to the shield]

View Quote Come, Leonidas. Let us reason together.

View Quote Councilmen, I stand before you not only as your queen. I come to you as a mother. I come to you as a wife. I come to you as a Spartan woman. I come to you with great humility. I am not here to represent Leonidas – his actions speak louder than my words ever could. I am here for all those voices which cannot be heard: mothers, daughters, fathers, sons – three hundred families that bleed for our rights, and for the very principles this room was built upon. We are at war, gentlemen. We must send the entire Spartan army to aid our king in the preservation of not just ourselves, but of our children. Send the army for the preservation of liberty. Send it for justice. Send it for law and order. Send it for reason. But most importantly, send our army for hope – hope that a king and his men have not been wasted to the pages of history – that their courage bonds us together, that we are made stronger by their actions, and that your choices today reflect their bravery.

View Quote Dawn: whips crack, barbarians howl. Those at the back cry, "Forward!" Those at the front cry, "Back!"

View Quote His helmet is stifling. His shield is heavy.

View Quote Immortals. We'll put their name to the test.

View Quote It is not the lash they fear, it is my divine power.

View Quote Madness? This is Sparta!!! [kicks the Persian messenger into a well]

View Quote No retreat, no surrender. That is Spartan law. And by Spartan law, we will stand and fight ... and die. A new age has begun: an age of freedom! And all will know that 300 Spartans gave their last breath to defend it!