Julius Caesar

By William Shakespeare QUOTATION: How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown!
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British poet. Julius Caesar (III, i).

QUOTATION: There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves
Or lose our ventures.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British poet. Julius Caesar (IV, iii).

QUOTATION: That we shall die, we know; ‘tis but the time,
And drawing days out, that men stand upon.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British poet. Julius Caesar (III, i).

QUOTATION: Men at some time are masters of their fates,
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British poet. Julius Caesar (I, ii).

QUOTATION: But ‘tis a common proof
That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British poet. Julius Caesar (II, i).

QUOTATION: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British poet. Julius Caesar (III, ii).

QUOTATION: The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British poet. Julius Caesar (III, ii).

QUOTATION: Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Julius Caesar, in Julius Caesar, act 2, sc. 2, l. 32-3 (1623).

Caesar disregards objections to his departure on the Ides of March for the Capitol, where he is to be assassinated.

QUOTATION: And you too, Brutus.
[Et tu, Brute.]
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, emperor. quoted in Lives of the Caesars, “Julius Caesar,” sct. 82, Suetonius (120 A.D.).

Spoken by Caesar in 44 B.C., on seeing that his friend Brutus was one of his assassins.

QUOTATION: The Ides of March have come.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general and emperor. quoted in Parallel Lives, “Caesar,” sct. 63, Plutarch.

Reputedly spoken by Caesar on his way to the forum on March 15, 44 B.C., the day of his assassination, recalling the warning of a soothsayer

QUOTATION: I believe that the members of my family must be as free from suspicion as from actual crime.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. Quoted in Suetonius, Life of Caesar, 74.

QUOTATION: I came, I saw, I conquered.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. Quoted in Suetonius, Life of Caesar, 37.

QUOTATION: Experience is the teacher of all things.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. The Civil War, 2. 8.

QUOTATION: As a result of a general defect of nature, we are either more confident or more fearful of unusual and unknown things.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. The Civil War, 2.4.

QUOTATION: They were not thinking of the means by which they could win, but how they could
make use of the victory.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. The Civil War, 3. 83.

QUOTATION: The things that we want we willingly believe, and the things that we think we expect everyone else to think.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator, and first Roman dictator. The Civil War, 2. 27.

QUOTATION: To win by strategy is no less the role of a general than to win by arms.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. The Civil War, 1.72.

QUOTATION: Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. The Civil War, 3. 68.

QUOTATION: Men’s minds tend to fear more keenly those things that are absent.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. The Gallic War, 7.84.

QUOTATION: It is the custom of the immortal gods to grant temporary prosperity and a fairly long period of impunity to those whom they plan to punish for their crimes, so that they may feel it all the more keenly as a result of the change in their fortunes.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. The Gallic War, 1.14.

QUOTATION: No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. The Gallic War, 6.39.

QUOTATION: All Gaul is divided into three parts.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, emperor. The Gallic War, bk. 1, l. 1 (52-51 B.C.).

First line of the book—indelibly associated with the study of Latin at school.

QUOTATION: People willingly believe what they want to believe.
ATTRIBUTION: Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.), Roman general, political leader, and first Roman dictator. The Gallic War, 3.18.