Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
- Source
- Julius Caesar
- Date
- c. 1599
- Local voice
- Fictional character · Cassius
Meaning of “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our…”
The line rejects passive fatalism and places responsibility for circumstances more directly on human decisions, ambition, and action.
Where does it come from?
Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2, in the 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Lawrence Mason. Cassius tells Brutus that men can be masters of their fates and immediately continues, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’ This is Cassius’s political persuasion inside the drama, not neutral historical evidence or Shakespeare speaking directly.
Why the local voice matters
Cassius speaks to Brutus in Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2.
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