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Julius Caesar key quotes: every quotation analysed

36 quotations from Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare), each with its speaker and scene, what the words are doing, the techniques at work and how to use it in a AQA GCSE English Literature essay. By character: Marcus Brutus (12), Caius Cassius (6), Mark Antony (6), Julius Caesar (Shakespeare's character) (6), Portia (6). Indexed by theme below.

A quotation is worth marks only when it is exact and doing work. Julius Caesar is examined on 8702 Paper 1, Section A — Shakespeare (closed book; a printed extract, then the play as a whole), and what scores is the analysis. Every entry here gives the analysis first: read the quotation, then the line on what it is doing, then close the page and say it back. The character studies linked from each section carry the readings and essay arguments the quotations serve; the Grade 9 Notes hold the whole text.

By theme

Honour and friendship (15) · Power, ambition and tyranny (13) · Rhetoric and persuasion (7) · Fate, omens and free will (4)

Marcus Brutus — 12 quotations

Marcus Brutus: character analysis, readings and essay arguments →

“I love / The name of honour more than I fear death.”

Brutus · Act 1, Scene 2

What it is doing. He values honour above his own life.

Techniques. Abstract noun

In an essay. Open any essay on Brutus's honour.

Themes: Honour and friendship

“Brutus had rather be a villager / Than to repute himself a son of Rome”

Brutus · Act 1, Scene 2

What it is doing. He would rather be humble than live under tyranny.

Techniques. Comparison

In an essay. Show his fear of Caesar's power.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, / I have not slept.”

Brutus · Act 2, Scene 1

What it is doing. Cassius's persuasion has robbed him of sleep.

Techniques. Metaphor of sharpening

In an essay. Show the cost of his inner conflict.

Themes: Rhetoric and persuasion

“It must be by his death”

Brutus · Act 2, Scene 1

What it is doing. He decides before he finds reasons.

Techniques. Soliloquy

In an essay. Central evidence for his self-deception in soliloquy.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny · Honour and friendship

“kill him in the shell”

Brutus · Act 2, Scene 1

What it is doing. Caesar is a serpent's egg to be destroyed early.

Techniques. Extended metaphor

In an essay. Show he kills a possibility, not a deed.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“Let's be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.”

Brutus · Act 2, Scene 1

What it is doing. He wants the murder to be a noble ritual.

Techniques. Antithesis

In an essay. Pair with Antony's 'these butchers'.

Themes: Honour and friendship

“ambition's debt is paid”

Brutus · Act 3, Scene 1

What it is doing. He claims Caesar's death settles his ambition.

Techniques. Metaphor of debt

In an essay. Show his justification of the murder.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.”

Brutus · Act 3, Scene 2

What it is doing. He puts country above friendship.

Techniques. Antithesis · Prose

In an essay. Central evidence for his reasoned oration.

Themes: Rhetoric and persuasion · Honour and friendship

“as he was ambitious, I slew him”

Brutus · Act 3, Scene 2

What it is doing. His blunt justification in balanced prose.

Techniques. Parallelism

In an essay. Show reasoning that cannot move emotion.

Themes: Rhetoric and persuasion

“There is a tide in the affairs of men”

Brutus · Act 4, Scene 3

What it is doing. Opportunity must be seized when it comes.

Techniques. Extended metaphor

In an essay. Discuss choice against fate at Philippi.

Themes: Fate, omens and free will

“Caesar, now be still: / I killed not thee with half so good a will.”

Brutus · Act 5, Scene 5

What it is doing. He dies more willingly than he killed Caesar.

Techniques. Rhyming couplet

In an essay. Conclude any essay on his guilt.

Themes: Honour and friendship

“This was the noblest Roman of them all”

Mark Antony (of Brutus) · Act 5, Scene 5

What it is doing. His enemy's final tribute to his motives.

Techniques. Superlative

In an essay. Weigh nobility against the murder.

Themes: Honour and friendship

Caius Cassius — 6 quotations

Caius Cassius: character analysis, readings and essay arguments →

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

Cassius · Act 1, Scene 2

What it is doing. Romans, not fate, are responsible for their subjection.

Techniques. Antithesis

In an essay. Central evidence for free will.

Themes: Fate, omens and free will

“he doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus”

Cassius · Act 1, Scene 2

What it is doing. Caesar towers over other men.

Techniques. Simile

In an essay. Show how Cassius stirs fear of Caesar.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“Thy honourable metal may be wrought / From that it is disposed”

Cassius · Act 1, Scene 2

What it is doing. He admits he is manipulating Brutus.

Techniques. Soliloquy · Metaphor

In an essay. Show the audience seeing manipulation.

Themes: Rhetoric and persuasion

“Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look”

Caesar (of Cassius) · Act 1, Scene 2

What it is doing. Caesar sees Cassius as dangerous.

Techniques. Characterisation by another

In an essay. Show Caesar's insight and complacency.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?”

Cassius · Act 1, Scene 3

What it is doing. He blames Romans' weakness for Caesar's power.

Techniques. Rhetorical question

In an essay. Show the logic the conspiracy is built on.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“A friendly eye could never see such faults.”

Cassius (to Brutus) · Act 4, Scene 3

What it is doing. He is hurt by Brutus's accusations.

Techniques. Reproach

In an essay. Show friendship surviving the quarrel.

Themes: Honour and friendship

Mark Antony — 6 quotations

Mark Antony: character analysis, readings and essay arguments →

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

Antony · Act 3, Scene 1

What it is doing. Alone, he reveals his fury at the conspirators.

Techniques. Apostrophe

In an essay. Answer Brutus's claim that they are not butchers.

Themes: Honour and friendship

“Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war”

Antony · Act 3, Scene 1

What it is doing. He prophesies civil war will follow the murder.

Techniques. Imperative

In an essay. Link to Elizabethan fears of disorder.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”

Antony · Act 3, Scene 2

What it is doing. He opens his funeral speech to all Rome.

Techniques. Tricolon

In an essay. Open any essay on rhetoric.

Themes: Rhetoric and persuasion

“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

Antony · Act 3, Scene 2

What it is doing. He pretends not to praise Caesar.

Techniques. Apophasis

In an essay. Show saying the opposite of what he does.

Themes: Rhetoric and persuasion

“For Brutus is an honourable man”

Antony · Act 3, Scene 2

What it is doing. Repeated until it becomes an accusation.

Techniques. Repetition · Irony

In an essay. Central evidence for verbal irony.

Themes: Rhetoric and persuasion · Honour and friendship

“Mischief, thou art afoot”

Antony · Act 3, Scene 2

What it is doing. He is satisfied at the riot he has caused.

Techniques. Personification

In an essay. Show his grief as strategy.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

Julius Caesar (Shakespeare's character) — 6 quotations

Julius Caesar (Shakespeare's character): character analysis, readings and essay arguments →

“Beware the ides of March.”

Soothsayer (to Caesar) · Act 1, Scene 2

What it is doing. The warning that Caesar dismisses as a dream.

Techniques. Prophecy

In an essay. Open any essay on omens.

Themes: Fate, omens and free will

“Let me have men about me that are fat”

Caesar · Act 1, Scene 2

What it is doing. He prefers contented men to thinkers.

Techniques. Characterisation

In an essay. Show his shrewdness about Cassius.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“Cowards die many times before their deaths”

Caesar · Act 2, Scene 2

What it is doing. He rejects fear of death.

Techniques. Aphorism

In an essay. Show courage and refusal to listen.

Themes: Fate, omens and free will

“Caesar shall go forth”

Caesar · Act 2, Scene 2

What it is doing. He refers to himself in the third person.

Techniques. Third person

In an essay. Show his self-image as a monument.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“I am constant as the northern star”

Caesar · Act 3, Scene 1

What it is doing. He claims to be fixed and unchanging.

Techniques. Simile · Hubris

In an essay. Discuss whether his pride justifies the murder.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!”

Caesar · Act 3, Scene 1

What it is doing. His last words, to his friend.

Techniques. Question · Third person

In an essay. Show betrayal at the heart of the play.

Themes: Honour and friendship

Portia — 6 quotations

Portia: character analysis, readings and essay arguments →

“Dwell I but in the suburbs / Of your good pleasure?”

Portia · Act 2, Scene 1

What it is doing. She asks if she is only on the edge of his life.

Techniques. Metaphor

In an essay. Show her claim to equality in marriage.

Themes: Honour and friendship

“Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.”

Portia · Act 2, Scene 1

What it is doing. Without trust she is not truly a wife.

Techniques. Antithesis

In an essay. Show the force of her argument.

Themes: Honour and friendship

“I grant I am a woman; but withal / A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife”

Portia · Act 2, Scene 1

What it is doing. She claims trust through her marriage.

Techniques. Concession

In an essay. Discuss women's status in the play.

Themes: Honour and friendship

“Giving myself a voluntary wound / Here, in the thigh”

Portia · Act 2, Scene 1

What it is doing. She proves her constancy by self-wounding.

Techniques. Dramatic gesture

In an essay. Show Roman constancy and foreshadowing.

Themes: Honour and friendship

“How hard it is for women to keep counsel!”

Portia · Act 2, Scene 4

What it is doing. She struggles to keep Brutus's secret.

Techniques. Exclamation

In an essay. Show anxiety at the edge of events.

Themes: Power, ambition and tyranny

“swallowed fire”

Brutus (of Portia) · Act 4, Scene 3

What it is doing. The manner of her death, reported briefly.

Techniques. Reported death

In an essay. Show the private cost of the conspiracy.

Themes: Honour and friendship

The quotations by theme

Honour and friendship (15)

Honour and friendship in Julius Caesar, taught in full →

Power, ambition and tyranny (13)

Power, ambition and tyranny in Julius Caesar, taught in full →

Rhetoric and persuasion (7)

Rhetoric and persuasion in Julius Caesar, taught in full →

Fate, omens and free will (4)

Fate, omens and free will in Julius Caesar, taught in full →

Think you know them?

Knowing a quotation is the start. On Incandio a character or theme counts as mastered only once you have taught it back and defended your reading of it against William Shakespeare — the two things a quotation list cannot ask of you.

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