4 quotations linked to Julius Caesar by or associated with William Shakespeare, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Courage, fate, agency, timing, ambition, political conflict, fear and persuasion as argued by Caesar, Cassius, Brutus and other dramatic characters.
Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.
“Men at some time are masters of their fates.”
Circumstances matter, but people also have moments when their own decisions meaningfully shape what follows.
Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2, in the 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Lawrence Mason. Cassius says ‘Men at some time are masters of their fates’ immediately before the fuller stars/underlings argument; the retained short record is part of the same local persuasion scene.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
Brutus uses the tide metaphor to argue that judgment includes timing: opportunities can require action before circumstances change.
Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3, in the 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Lawrence Mason. Brutus argues for marching to Philippi and compares opportunity to a tide that must be taken at the flood; the metaphor belongs to a disputed military decision inside the play rather than a context-free guarantee of success.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
The contrast suggests that repeated fear can make a person suffer imagined losses long before the real event arrives.
Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 2, in the 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Lawrence Mason. Caesar tells Calpurnia, ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; / The valiant never taste of death but once,’ while rejecting her fear and deciding to go out. The line remains Caesar’s dramatic reasoning, not Shakespeare’s direct personal counsel.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
The line rejects passive fatalism and places responsibility for circumstances more directly on human decisions, ambition, and action.
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.
