Passages from Julius Caesar

A man refuses to blame the stars for his own smallness.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow worldLike a Colossus, and we petty menWalk under his huge legs and peep aboutTo find ourselves dishonourable graves.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.

Why the fear of dying costs more than dying does.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;The valiant never taste of death but once.Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,It seems to me most strange that men should fear;Seeing that death, a necessary end,Will come when it will come.

The calm farewell of two men who suspect there won't be another.

No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman,That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;He bears too great a mind. But this same dayMust end that work the ides of March begun;And whether we shall meet again I know not.Therefore our everlasting farewell take:Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius!If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;If not, why then, this parting was well made.

The reasoning of a good man deciding that someone must die.

But when he once attains the upmost round,He then unto the ladder turns his back,Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degreesBy which he did ascend. So Caesar may.Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrelWill bear no colour for the thing he is,Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,Would run to these and these extremities:And therefore think him as a serpent’s eggWhich, hatch’d, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,And kill him in the shell.

The moment when waiting becomes a decision in itself.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;Omitted, all the voyage of their lifeIs 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.

The tell, according to Caesar, that a man is capable of anything.

Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:Yet if my name were liable to fear,I do not know the man I should avoidSo soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;He is a great observer and he looksQuite through the deeds of men; he loves no plays,As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sortAs if he mock’d himself and scorn’d his spiritThat could be moved to smile at anything.Such men as he be never at heart’s easeWhiles they behold a greater than themselves,And therefore are they very dangerous.

The one flattery that never fails is telling a man he cannot be flattered.

Never fear that: if he be so resolved,I can o’ersway him; for he loves to hearThat unicorns may be betray’d with trees,And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,Lions with toils and men with flatterers;But when I tell him he hates flatterers,He says he does, being then most flattered.

A wife asks her husband whether she is his partner or his convenience.

I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,Is it excepted I should know no secretsThat appertain to you? Am I yourselfBut, 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 suburbsOf your good pleasure? If it be no more,Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife.

She has never been superstitious. Then the graves opened.

Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,Yet now they fright me. There is one within,Besides the things that we have heard and seen,Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.A lioness hath whelped in the streets;And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead;Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;The noise of battle hurtled in the air,Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.O Caesar! these things are beyond all use,And I do fear them.