Caesar Julius Quotes & Sayings

It is better to suffer once than to be in perpetual apprehension. — Julius Caesar

The court jester had the right to say the most outrageous things to the king. Everything was permitted during carnival, even the songs that the Roman legionnaires would sing, calling Julius Caesar 'queen,' alluding, in a very transparent way, to his real, or presumed, homosexual escapades. — Umberto Eco

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! — William Shakespeare

The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely populated empire in its troubled twilight in the name of a proud and cultivated dynasty. She remains on the map for having seduced two of the greatest men of her time, while her crime was to have entered into those same "wily and suspicious" marital partnerships that every man in power enjoyed. She did so in reverse and in her own name; this made her a deviant, socially disruptive, an unnatural woman. To these she added a few other offenses. She made Rome feel uncouth, insecure, and poor, sufficient cause for anxiety without adding sexuality into the mix. — Stacy Schiff

Here will I stand till Caesar pass along,
And as a suitor will I give him this.
My heart laments the virtue cannot live
Out of the teeth of emulation.
If thou read this, O Caesar, thou mayest live;
If not, the fates with traitors do contrive. — William Shakespeare

Brutus: Kneel not, gentle Portia.
Portia: I should need not, if you were gentle Brutus.
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,
Is it excepted I should know no secrets
That appertain to you? Am I yourself
But, as it were, in sort or limitation,
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,
And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs
Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. — William Shakespeare

War gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished. — Julius Caesar

Being only twelve, Klaus of course had not read all the books in the Baudelaire library, but he had read a great many of them and had retained a lot of the information from his readings. He knew how to tell an alligator from a crocodile. He knew who killed Julius Caesar. And he knew much about the tiny, slimy animals found at Briny Beach, which he was examining now. — Lemony Snicket

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. — Julius Caesar

All Gaul is divided into three parts. — Julius Caesar

We need a Napoleon. An Alexander. Except that Napoleon lost in the end, and Alexander flamed out and died young. We need a Julius Caesar, except that he made himself a dictator, and died for it. — Orson Scott Card

In war, important events result from trivial causes. — Julius Caesar

And Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food, shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next - and on and on. Thanks to their decreased brainpower, people aren't diverted from the main business of life by the hobgoblins of opinions anymore. — Kurt Vonnegut

Avoid an unusual and unfamiliar word just as you would a reef. — Julius Caesar

Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Caesar and his fortune in your boat. — Julius Caesar

When I was making these damned pictures, I never knew about film noir. If you had asked me about it then, I probably would have pointed to something like Bill Wellman's The Ox Bow Incident, the best Western I ever saw and very much in the style of film noir I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross that defines what kind of drama it is. — Samuel Fuller

Julius Caesar burned down a library?" I asked. "Fucker. — Rose Christo

Julius Caesar divorced his wife Pompeia, but declared at the trial that he knew nothing of what was alleged against her and Clodius. When asked why, in that case, he had divorced her, he replied: Because I would have the chastity of my wife clear even of suspicion. — Plutarch

Do you believe in the existence of Socrates? Alexander the Great? Julius Caesar? If historicity is established by written records in multiple copies that date originally from near contemporaneous sources, there is far more proof for Christ's existence than for any of theirs. — Dinesh D'Souza

You should be," she said. "Look what happened to Julius Caesar when he underestimated those around him." So we went out to the — Gary D. Schmidt

Detective Inspector Eccles sighed. He may ordinarily have met his sigh with the question of why the newly appointed Superintendent Dickinson was turning up to this late hour crime scene, he may also ordinarily question why his superior officer was dressed as Julius Caesar, in full tunic and green leafy wreath, yet ever since the new and youngest-ever-appointed superintendent had arrived at the Met it had been all too clear he was an officer who didn't quite do things by the eBook. — Tom Conrad

Another factor: Christianity offered opportunities for advancement in the church to intelligent young men, some of whom might otherwise have become mathematicians or scientists. Bishops and presbyters were generally exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary civil courts, and from taxation. A bishop such as Cyril of Alexandria or Ambrose of Milan could exercise considerable political power, much more than a scholar at the Museum in Alexandria or the Academy in Athens. This was something new. Under paganism religious offices had gone to men of wealth or political power, rather than wealth and power going to men of religion. For instance, Julius Caesar and his successors won the office of supreme pontiff, not as a recognition of piety or learning, but as a consequence of their political power. — Steven Weinberg

As I love the name of honour more than I fear death. — William Shakespeare

Cleopatra: You come before me as a suppliant.
Antony: If you choose to regard me as such.
Cleopatra: You will therefore assume the position of a suppliant before this throne. You will kneel.
Antony: I will *what*?
Cleopatra: On-your-knees!
Antony: You dare ask the Proconsul of the Roman Empire?
Cleopatra: I *asked* it of Julius Caesar. I *demand* it of you — Elizabeth Taylor

We are all the children of Rome, without knowing it. Our months are called after Roman emperors or gods, our summer is July and August, named after Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar. When you people scream fascist at us, you are referring to the rods of authority called fasces by the Romans. The idea of law written down and to be observed equally comes to us from the Romans, and our alphabet comes to us exactly from the Roman. From plumbing to the idea that surrounding someone in battle gives victory, Rome gave them to us. Rome is our common, civilized roots, so deep that many of us in the West do not even realize it unless we are educated to it. Rome is our intellectual father, and we have been living off its remnants for two thousand years. — Richard Sapir

Experience is the teacher of all things. — Gaius Julius Caesar

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all — William Shakespeare

Not much could have distracted me from coffee, but hearing Julius Caesar quoted at Spencer's certainly did. — Richelle Mead

I came, I saw, I conquered. — Gaius Julius Caesar

Tis a common proof That lowliness is young ambition's ladder - WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar — Liaquat Ahamed

I would rather be the first man in a barbarian village than the second man in Rome. — Julius Caesar

If a little less time was devoted to the translation of letters by Julius Caesar describing Britain 2000 years ago and a little more time was spent on teaching children how to describe (in simple modern English) the method whereby ethylene was converted into polythene in 1933 in the ICI laboratories at Northwich, and to discussing the enormous social changes which have resulted from this discovery, then I believe that we should be training future leaders in this country to face the world of tomorrow far more effectively than we are at the present time. — Ronald Sydney Nyholm

I am going to Spain to fight an army without a general, and thence to the East to fight a general without an army. — Julius Caesar

When I was on Raw, I was like Julius Caesar, an all-powerful conquering hero who became so powerful that everyone around him had to conspire against him. — Wade Barrett

Wine and other luxuries have a tendency to enervate the mind and make men less brave in battle. — Julius Caesar

People readily believe what they want to believe. — Julius Caesar

When I notice how carefully arranged his hair is and when I watch him adjusting the parting with one finger, I cannot imagine that this man could conceive of such a wicked thing as to destroy the Roman constitution. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

To win by strategy is no less the role of a general than to win by arms. — Julius Caesar

I'm up for the Julius Caesar Author of the Year Award this year. I'm tremendously proud, considering Caesar is the guy who burned down the Library of Alexandria. — Jarod Kintz

It's only hubris if I fail. — Julius Caesar

Carefully measure the depth of water when crossing your Rubicon in life. The river was shallow when Julius Caesar crossed 2000 years ago. — Shahid Hussain Raja

You couldn't find nobody deader, not if you'd sarched for a week. Why, door nails, and Julius Caesar, and things o' that description, would ha' been lively compared with your poor ma when I see her. Lively! that's what they'd ha' been. — Laura E. Richards

Fate, dear Brutus, lies not with the stars but within ourselves. — Julius Caesar

If we assume that the last breath of, say, Julius Caesar has by now become thoroughly scattered through the atmosphere, then the chances are that each of us inhales one molecule of it with every breath we take. — James Hopwood Jeans

The Canadian version of Julius Caesar's memoirs? I came, I saw, I coped. — Clive James

I love treason but hate a traitor. — Gaius Julius Caesar

I was nine. I saw Orson Welles in 'Julius Caesar.' It was involving, emotional, imaginative. I've never forgotten it. — Harold Prince

The things that we want we willingly believe, and the things that we think we expect everyone else to think. — Julius Caesar

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind is closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and do it gladly so. — Julius Caesar

He [Julius Caesar] learned that Alexander , having completed nearly all his conquests by the time he was thirty-two years old, was at an utter loss to know what he should do during the rest of his life, whereat Augustus expressed his surprise that Alexander did not regard it as a greater task to set in order the empire which he had won than to win it. — Augustus

Julius Caesar was one of the thirty-four Roman emperors (out of the total of forty-nine that reigned until the division of the empire) who were killed by guards, high officials, or members of their own families. — Steven Pinker

Julius Caesar's wife, who said to Julius, We are not naming our son Sid! Never got a dinner! — Red Buttons

We should never forget that Jesus was executed in the name of "freedom and justice" - whether it was the Roman version or the Jewish version. But the cross shames the ancient deception that freedom and justice can be attained by killing. The crowd believes this pernicious lie, but Christ never does. The Passover crowd shouted, "Hosanna!" (" Save now!") until it realized that Jesus wouldn't save them by killing their enemies; then it shouted, "Crucify him!" Jesus refused to be a messiah after the model of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Judah Maccabeus, William Wallace, or George Washington - and the crowd despises him for it. The crowd loves their violent heroes. The crowd is predisposed to believe in the idea that "freedom and justice" can be achieved by violence. — Brian Zahnd

As a result of a general defect of nature, we are either more confident or more fearful of unusual and unknown things. — Julius Caesar

While trying to protect the republic, the conspirators in Julius Caesar enable Mark Antony to triumph. In Rose Rage, the more Henry VI tries to fix things, the more they go wrong. — Edward Hall

Think you I am no stronger than my own sex being so father'd and husbanded? — William Shakespeare

I nearly broke out laughing when the wrteched soothsayer warned Caesar: "Beware the Ides of April." I thought it a miracle (and a relief) that no one in the udience had snickered or yelled out a correction. How could such an error be made by an actor? Had my ears deceived me? — Seth Grahame-Smith

The educated man, habitually, almost without noticing it, sees the present as something that grows out of a long perspective of centuries. In my the minds of my RAF hearers this perspective simply did not exist. It seemed to me that they did not really believe that we have any reliable knowledge of historic man. But this was often curiously combined with a conviction that we knew a great deal about Prehistoric Man: doubtless because Prehistoric Man is labelled "Science" (which is reliable) whereas Napoleon or Julius Caesar is labelled as "History" (which is not. — C.S. Lewis

Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third - ['Treason!' cried the Speaker] - may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it. — Patrick Henry

I have lived long enough both in years and in accomplishments. — Julius Caesar

Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. — Julius Caesar

No music is so charming to my ear as the requests of my friends, and the supplications of those in want of my assistance. — Julius Caesar

[Shakespeare realized that] Women are able to understand themselves better on a personal level and survive in the world if they dress in men's clothing, thus living underground, safe (...). The presence of women disguising themselves as men dictates that the play be a comedy; women remaining in their frocks, a tragedy. In four great tragedies -Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear- almost all the women die (...).
How much the women have to adhere to the rules and regulations of their enviroment makes a large difference. Once Rosalind [disguised as a man in As You Like It] has run away from the court, she has no institutional structures to deal with. Ophelia [in her frocks] is surrounded tightly by institutional structures of family, court, and politics; only by going mad can be get out of it all. — Tina Packer

those who are weak enough to think this a degrading task, and the time and labour which have been devoted to it misemployed, I shall content myself with opposing the authority of the greatest man of any age, JULIUS CAeSAR, of whom Bacon observes, that 'in his book of Apothegms which he collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apothegm or an oracle.' Having said thus much by way of introduction, I commit the following pages to the candour of the Publick. — Anonymous

There is more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever lived or that Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three. — Billy Graham

Brutus, a young man, over the fleet and those Gallic vessels which he had ordered to be furnished by the Pictones and the Santoni, and the other provinces which remained at peace; and commands him to proceed towards the Veneti, as soon as he could. He himself hastens thither with the land forces. — Gaius Julius Caesar

As they spoke, the only thing I could think about was that scene from Julius Caesar where Brutus stabs him in the back. Et tu, Eric? — Nicholas Sparks

Playing Mark Antony in Julius Caesar was the most thrilling thing I've done. You get these speeches that were written for men, and you're running around like an action hero, climbing scaffolding and beating people up. It was very freeing. — Cush Jumbo

Men willingly believe when they want to. — Julius Caesar

They were doing what they thought they had to do. Their intentions were as good as those of most political and religious purists. In the time of Julius Caesar, Brutus was known as the most moral man in Rome. Whenever we think of what he did and of what then became of him, we are reminded that unduly virtuous men can be as great a danger to themselves and their own causes as they are to their adversaries. — James R. Mills

Leaders began to profess their love of peace and to claim that war had been forced upon them.118 As Mueller notes, "No longer was it possible simply and honestly to proclaim like Julius Caesar, 'I came, I saw, I conquered.' Gradually this was changed to 'I came, I saw, he attacked me while I was just standing there looking, I won.' This might be seen as progress."119 — Steven Pinker

According to Shakespeare, the Roman populace had made no advance in cleanliness in the centuries between Coriolanus and Caesar. Casca gives a vivid picture of the offer of the crown to Julius, and his rejection of it: And still as he refused it the rabblement shouted, and clapped their chapped hands, and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath, because Caesar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Caesar, for he swooned and fell down at it. — William Shakespeare

The Romans held Britain from the invasion of Julius Caesar till their voluntary withdrawal from the island, A.D. 420,- that is, about five hundred years. — Thomas Bulfinch

When a portent repeats itself three times, like something out of Julius Caesar, even Caliban, a couple of plays over, is bound to notice. — Karen Joy Fowler

Men gladly believe what they wish. -Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt — Julius Caesar

Arms and laws do not flourish together. — Julius Caesar

Then you may have sheer clotted nonsense; I once chased Julius Caesar all over London to get his recipe for curried eggs. — Arthur Machen

As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men's minds more seriously than what they see. — Julius Caesar

Set honor in one eye and death in th' other, and I will look on both indifferently. I love then name of honor more than I fear death. — Julius Caesar

Classical Studies
Question: What were the circumstances of Julius Caesar's death?

Answer: Suspicious ones — Richard Benson

If I fail it is only because I have too much pride and ambition. — Julius Caesar

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look — Julius Caesar

There are certain historical figures of such importance that we need to know everything about them, which is why books about Napoleon, Lincoln, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, and the great religious founders continue to proliferate; these lives require constant reevaluation and interpretation. — Robert Gottlieb

All democracies turn into dictatorships - but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea ... — George Lucas

Marriage,love and commitment does not give a man permission to act like Julius Caesar by pushing his partner into sexual promiscuity like a concubine for his own sexual pleasures. — Sheree' Griffin

Apollodorus came, Caesar saw, Cleopatra conquered. — Stacy Schiff

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves. — William Shakespeare

We applied a very simple principle: Recognize the facts. Abortion is old as the world. Gay marriage, please - it's older than the world. We had Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, please. To say it's modern, come on, it's older than we are. It's an objective reality that it exists. For us, not legalizing it would be to torture people needlessly. — Jose Mujica

The Tories had the legal right to demand extra meetings of the council but I could decide when they would be held and always called them for Friday afternoons, knowing that three or four of the richer Tories went to the country early and were not prepared to stay in the city beyond lunchtime. I realised that nothing in politics is new when I read in Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars that Julius Caesar pulled the same trick when reactionaries in the senate were making his life difficult. — Ken Livingstone

I believe that the members of my family must be as free from suspicion as from actual crime. — Julius Caesar

You know, Bo, there is a feeling, in that instant following some life-changing tragedy, that you can actually step back over that sliver of time and stop the horror from coming. But that feeling is a lie, because in the tiniest microminisecond after any event occurs, it is as safe in history as Julius Caesar. Data in the universal computer is backed up as it happens. — Chris Crutcher

Men freely believe that which they desire. — Julius Caesar

They were in Julius Caesar now and the stage direction "Alarum" confused Katie. She thought it had something to do with fire engines and whenever she came to that word, she shouted out "clang-clang." The children thought it was wonderful. — Betty Smith

Strike as thou didst at Caesar; for I know / When though didst hate him worst, thou loved'st him better / Than ever thou loved'st Cassius. — William Shakespeare

Homer, Hesiod, Pythagoras, Plato, and Cicero, just to name a few, all lived in pagan societies. Some of the greatest political and military leaders of all time, such as Alexander the Great, Pericles of Athens, Hannibal of Carthage, and Julius Caesar of Rome, were all pagans, or else living in a pagan society. — Brendan Myers

Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true. — Julius Caesar

The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar. — Thomas Paine

Epilepsy is a disease in the shadows. Patients are often reluctant to admit their condition - even to close family, friends or co-workers - because there's still a great deal of stigma and mystery surrounding the disease that plagued such historical figures as Julius Caesar, Edgar Allan Poe and Lewis Carroll. — Lynda Resnick

I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Caesar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men and his aversion to lean ones. — David Hume

Julius Caesar walks into a bar. "I'll have a martinus," he says. The bartender — Various