I, the sultan of sultans, and the strongest ruler, the loftiest king who defeats the kingdoms around the world, and the shadow of Allah in the Earth, am the son of Sultan Selim who is the son of Sultan Beyazid, Sultan Suleiman, Caesar of Rome, the sultan of Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, and Thrace, and Anatolia, and Karaman and the City of Dulkadir and Diyarbakir and Kurdistan, and Iran and Damascus and Aleppo and Egypt and Mecca and Medinah and Jerusalem and the whole Arab land and Yemen and many more lands that our lofty ancestors conquered with their crushing powers and I conquered with my fire-scattering sword...
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Babylon violated diminishes Alexander; Rome enslaved diminishes Caesar; massacred Jerusalem diminishes Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant. Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form.
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For ten years Caesar ruled with an iron hand. Then with a wooden foot, and finally with a piece of string.
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Caesar had perished from the world of men, had not his sword been rescued by his pen.
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What would you have me do? Search out some powerful patronage, and be Like crawling ivy clinging to a tree? No thank you. Dedicate, like all the others, Verses to plutocrats, while caution smothers Whatever might offend my lord and master? No thank you. Kneel until my knee-caps fester, Bend my back until I crack my spine, And scratch another’s back if he’ll scratch mine? No thank you. Dining out to curry favour, Meeting the influential till I slaver, Suiting my style to what the critics want With slavish copy of the latest can’t? No thanks! Ready to jump through any hoop To be the great man of a little group? Be blown off course, with madrigals for sails, By the old women sighing through their veils? Labouring to write a line of such good breeding Its only fault is that it’s not worth reading? To ingratiate myself, abject with fear, And fawn and flatter to avoid a sneer? No thanks, no thanks, no thanks! But just to sing, Dream, laugh, and take my tilt of wing, To cock a snook whenever I shall choose, To fight for yes and no, come win or lose, To travel without thought of fame or fortune Wherever I care to go to under the moon! Never to write a line that hasn’t come Directly from my heart: and so, with some Modesty, to tell myself: My boy, Be satisfied with a flower, a fruit, the joy Of a single leaf, so long as it was grown In your own garden. Then, if success is won By any chance, you have nothing to render to A hollow Caesar: the merit belongs to you. In short, I won’t be a parasite; I’ll be My own intention, stand alone and free, And suit my voice to what my own eyes see!
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Mark 12:14:
They came to him and said, 'Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?'
(NIV)
And they came up and said to Him, Teacher, we know that You are sincere and what You profess to be, that You cannot lie, and that You have no personal bias for anyone; for You are not influenced by partiality and have no regard for anyone's external condition or position, but in [and on the basis of] truth You teach the way of God. Is it lawful (permissible and right) to give tribute (poll taxes) to Caesar or not?
(AMP)
And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?
(KJV)
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There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound by shallows and in misery. Julius Caesar
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The omission of an expected conjunction is called an asyndeton . Caesar is supposed to have said about Gaul: I came, I saw, I conquered. Lincoln concluded the Gettysburg Address, That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.Caesar seems to have omitted his conjunction to speed things up; he is emphasizing how quickly the conquest of a place follows from its being sighted by a great and ambitious general. Lincoln's omission is more subtle
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As a rule, men worry more about what they can't see than about what they can.
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Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much; such men are dangerous. Julius Caesar
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Capitalism is an art form, an Apollonian fabrication to rival nature. It is hypocritical for feminists and intellectuals to enjoy the pleasures and conveniences of capitalism while sneering at it. Everyone born into capitalism has incurred a debt to it. Give Caesar his due.
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It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them.
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What a strange thing is the propagation of life! A bubble of seed which may be spilt in a whore's lap, or in the orgasm of a voluptuous dream, might (for aught we know) have formed a Caesar or a Bonaparte -- there is nothing remarkable recorded of their sires, that I know of.
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Gallia est omnis divisa in partres tres. (All Gaul is divided into three parts)
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I found Rome brick, I left it marble.
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Veni, vidi, vici. (I came, I saw, I conquered.)
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Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them The good is oft interred with their bones.
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Et tu, Brute.
[You also, Brutus.]
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I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.
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Hasten slowly.
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The die is cast.
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And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
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It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.
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I came, I saw, I conquered.
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He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
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What an artist the world is losing in me
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Which death is preferably to every other? The unexpected.
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Men generally believe what they wish.
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I am going to Spain to fight an army without a general, and thence to the East to fight a general without an army.
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Et tu, Brute. You also, Brutus.
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