Plutarch, Moralia 232 D – 236 E:

48.
In answer to the man who called Lampis (5) of Aegina happy, because he seemed very rich in having many cargoes on the sea in ships, a Spartan said, “I do not pay much attention to happiness that hangs by ropes [οὐ προσέχω εὐδαιμονίᾳ ἐκ σχοινίων ἀπηρτημένη]!”

52.
When the keeper of a bath was pouring a great quantity of water for Alcibiades (6), a Spartan said, “Why all this for him as if he were not clean? The fellow is pouring in extra water as if for a very dirty man [τί τοῦτο ὡς οὐ καθαρῷ; σφόδρα δὲ ὡς ῥυπαρῷ πλεῖον παραχεῖ].”

53.
When Philip of Macedon sent some orders to the Spartans by letter, they wrote in reply, “What you wrote about, ‘No’. [περὶ ὧν ἇμιν ἔγραψας, Οὔ.]”
When he invaded the Spartan’s country, and all thought that they should be destroyed, he said to one of the Spartans, “What shall you do now, men of Sparta?” And the other said, “What else than die like men? For we alone of all the Greeks have learned to be free, and not to be subject of others.”

54.
After the defeat of Agis (7), Antipater demanded fifty boys as hostages, but Eteocles, who was Ephor, said they would not give boys, lest the boys should turn out to be uneducated through missing the traditional discipline; and they would not be fitted for citizenship either. But the Spartans would give, if he so desired, either old men or women to double the number. And when Antipater made dire threats if he should not get the boys, the Spartans made answer with one consent, “If the orders you lay upon us are harsher than death, we shall find it easier to die [ἐὰν χαλεπώτερα θανάτου ἐπιτάττῃς, εὐκολώτερον ἀποθανούμεθα].”

[Plutarch: Moralia III. Ed. by Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge (Mass.)/London ⁷2004, pp. 394-421]

(5) berühmt für seine Schiffe und seinen Wohlstand
(6) Alkibiades war vor gerichtlicher Verfolgung nach Sparta geflohen.
(7) Agis III. (338-331/330 v.u.Z.) konnte eine antimakedonische Allianz organisieren, unterlag aber wohl im Frühjahr 330 dem makedonischen General Antipater bei Megalopolis, wurde verwundet und starb auf dem Rückzug.