Disputed
Original: (la) Qui se ultro morti offerant facilius reperiuntur quam qui dolorem patienter ferant.
Quoted in many works without citation
Works
Commentarii de Bello Gallico
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar:
18
quotes
23
likes
Famous Julius Caesar Quotes
“Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest/strongest.”
Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae.
Book I, Ch. 1
De Bello Gallico
“The immortal gods are wont to allow those persons whom they wish to punish for their guilt sometimes a greater prosperity and longer impunity, in order that they may suffer the more severely from a reverse of circumstances.”
Consuesse enim deos immortales, quo gravius homines ex commutatione rerum doleant, quos pro scelere eorum ulcisci velint, his secundiores interdum res et diuturniorem impunitatem concedere.
Book I, Ch. 14, translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn
De Bello Gallico
“I came, I saw, I conquered.”
Veni, vidi, vici.
Written in a report to Rome 47 B.C., after conquering Pharnaces at Zela in Asia Minor in just five days; as quoted in Life of Caesar http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caesar*.html#50 by Plutarch; reported to have been inscribed on one of the decorated wagons in the Pontic triumph, in Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Julius http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Julius*.html#37, by Suetonius
Variant translation:
Came, Saw, Conquered
Inscription on the triumphal wagon reported in The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, as translated by Robert Graves (1957)
Original: (sl) Veni, vidi, vici.
“I'd rather ten guilty persons should escape, than one innocent should suffer.”
Attributed by Edward Seymour in 1696 during the parliamentary proceedings against John Fenwick ( "I am of the same opinion with the Roman, who, in the case of Catiline, declared, he had rather ten guilty persons should escape, than one innocent should suffer" http://books.google.com/books?id=dIM-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA565), to which Lieutenant General Harry Mordaunt replied "The worthy member who spoke last seems to have forgot, that the Roman who made that declaration was suspected of being a conspirator himself" (Caesar was the only one who spoke in the Senate against executing Catiline's co-conspirators and was indeed suspected by some to be involved in the plot). However, the Caesar's corresponding speech as transmitted by Sallust http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Sallust/Bellum_Catilinae*.html#51 contains no such phrase, even though it appears to be somewhat similar in spirit ("Whatever befalls these prisoners will be well deserved; but you, Fathers of the Senate, are called upon to consider how your action will affect other criminals. All bad precedents have originated in cases which were good; but when the control of the government falls into the hands of men who are incompetent or bad, your new precedent is transferred from those who well deserve and merit such punishment to the undeserving and blameless.") The first person to undoubtedly utter such a dictum was in fact John Fortescue ("It is better to allow twenty criminals to mercifully avoid death than to unjustly condemn one innocent person"). It should also be noted that whether the exchange between Seymour and Mordaunt even happened is itself not clearly established http://books.google.com/books?id=IitDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA694.
Misattributed
“Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces.”
Sed fortuna, quae plurimum potest cum in reliquis rebus tum praecipue in bello, parvis momentis magnas rerum commutationes efficit; ut tum accidit.
The Civil War, Book III, 68; variant translation: "In war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes."
Julius Caesar Quotes
“In most cases men willingly believe what they wish.”
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Book III, Chapter 18
Variant translation: Men willingly believe what they wish to be true.
As quoted in The Adventurer No. 69 (3 July 1753) in The Works of Samuel Johnson (1837) edited by Arthur Murphy, p. 32
Compare: "What each man wishes, that he also believes to be true" Demosthenes, Olynthiac 3.19
De Bello Gallico
“The die is cast.”
Alea iacta est.
As quoted in Vita Divi Iuli [The Life of the deified Julius] (121 CE) by Suetonius, paragraph 33 http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/suetonius/suet.caesar.html#33 (Caesar: … "Iacta alea est", inquit. – Caesar said … "the die is cast".)
Said when crossing the river Rubicon with his legions on 10 January, 49 BC, thus beginning the civil war with the forces of Pompey. The Rubicon river was the boundary of Gaul, the province Caesar had the authority to keep his army in. By crossing the river, he had committed an invasion of Italy.
A contrasting account from Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 60.2.9:
:<u>Ἑλληνιστὶ</u> πρὸς τοὺς παρόντας ἐκβοήσας, «Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος», [anerrhíphtho kúbos] διεβίβαζε τὸν στρατόν.
::He [Caesar] declared <u>in Greek</u> with loud voice to those who were present ‘Let the die be cast’ and led the army across.
: He was reportedly quoting the playwright Menander, specifically “Ἀρρηφόρῳ” (Arrephoria, or “The Flute-Girl”), according to Deipnosophistae, Book 13 http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/erudits/athenee/XIII.htm, paragraph 8, saying «Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος» (anerrhíphtho kúbos). The Greek translates rather as “<u>let</u> the die <u>be</u> cast!”, or “Let the game be ventured!”, which would instead translate in Latin as iacta ālea estō. According to Lewis and Short ( Online Dictionary: alea http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3D%231776, Lewis and Short at the Perseus Project. See bottom of section I.).
Book VII
De Bello Gallico
“I will not … that my wife be so much as suspected.”
His declaration as to why he had divorced his wife Pompeia, when questioned in the trial against Publius Clodius Pulcher for sacrilege against Bona Dea festivities (from which men were excluded), in entering Caesar's home disguised as a lute-girl apparently with intentions of a seducing Caesar's wife; as reported in Plutarch's Lives of Coriolanus, Caesar, Brutus, and Antonius by Plutarch, as translated by Thomas North, p. 53
Variant translations:
Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.
“There are also animals which are called elks [alces "moose" in Am. Engl.; elk "wapiti"]. The shape of these, and the varied colour of their skins, is much like roes, but in size they surpass them a little and are destitute of horns, and have legs without joints and ligatures; nor do they lie down for the purpose of rest, nor, if they have been thrown down by any accident, can they raise or lift themselves up. Trees serve as beds to them; they lean themselves against them, and thus reclining only slightly, they take their rest; when the huntsmen have discovered from the footsteps of these animals whither they are accustomed to betake themselves, they either undermine all the trees at the roots, or cut into them so far that the upper part of the trees may appear to be left standing. When they have leant upon them, according to their habit, they knock down by their weight the unsupported trees, and fall down themselves along with them.”
Sunt item, quae appellantur alces. Harum est consimilis capris figura et varietas pellium, sed magnitudine paulo antecedunt mutilaeque sunt cornibus et crura sine nodis articulisque habent neque quietis causa procumbunt neque, si quo adflictae casu conciderunt, erigere sese aut sublevare possunt. His sunt arbores pro cubilibus: ad eas se applicant atque ita paulum modo reclinatae quietem capiunt. Quarum ex vestigiis cum est animadversum a venatoribus, quo se recipere consuerint, omnes eo loco aut ab radicibus subruunt aut accidunt arbores, tantum ut summa species earum stantium relinquatur. Huc cum se consuetudine reclinaverunt, infirmas arbores pondere adfligunt atque una ipsae concidunt.
Book VI
De Bello Gallico
“All Gaul is divided into three parts”
Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.
Book I, Ch. 1 http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/caesar/gall1.shtml; these are the first words of De Bello Gallico, the whole sentence is "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third." http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0448.phi001.perseus-lat1:1.1.1
De Bello Gallico
“Gaul is subdued.”
Gallia est pacata.
Written in a letter with which Caesar informed the Roman Senate of his victory over Vercingetorix in 52 BC
This statement by an unknown author has also been wrongly attributed to William Shakespeare, but there are no records of it prior to late 2001. It has been debunked at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/quotes/caesar.htm
Misattributed
“I prefer nothing but that they act like themselves, and I like myself.”
Nihil enim malo quam et me mei similem esse et illos sui.
Reported by Marcus Tullius Cicero in a letter to Atticus.
Variant translations:
There is nothing I like better than that I should be true to myself and they to themselves.
Disputed
“It is not the well-fed long-haired man I fear, but the pale and the hungry looking.”
As reported in Plutarch's Anthony'; William Shakespeare adapted this in having Caesar declare Cassius as having "a lean and hungry look."
“I assure you I had rather be the first man here than the second man in Rome.”
On passing through a village in the Alps, as attributed in Parallel Lives, by Plutarch, as translated by John Langhorne and William Langhorne (1836), p. 499
Variant: First in a village rather than second in Rome.
“It was an enormous struggle to destroy the Belgian nation.”
A cursory overview of the history of Belgium, applied to the present events, until January 1830, (Issued for the benefit of the fund for the needy relatives of the extended Volunteers from Northern Brabant) 's HERTOGENBOSCH, Ter Boek en Provinciale Courant - Drukkerij Van DE. LION en ZONEN. (Januari 1831) Quoted from Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico.
De Bello Gallico
