“Caesar was a reserved, disbelieving, obdurate man, and Cleopatra had conquered him by loving him for what others found repellent. ‘In you, Caesar,’ she told him, ‘I have something that, being not sweet, will not corrupt—but, like a sour metal, will only tarnish.’ And in Cleopatra Caesar had something of another world, something hellish it might be, a stranger—but, because a stranger, one with whom he could yield to weariness of himself and yet feel that in his own world he had lost none of its secrets.”

Lives of Wives (London: Cassell, 1939)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Caesar was a reserved, disbelieving, obdurate man, and Cleopatra had conquered him by loving him for what others found …" by Laura Riding Jackson?

Laura Riding Jackson42

poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer 1901–1991

Related quotes

“He [Julius Caesar] stayed in Egypt from early October until late in June settling affairs of state. It was a boy and they called him Caesarion, or Little Caesar, so Cleopatra now regarded herself as practically engaged. Caesar might have married her, but he had a wife at home. There's always something.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Cleopatra

“THEODOTUS: Caesar: you are a stranger here, and not conversant with our laws. The kings and queens of Egypt may not marry except with their own royal blood. Ptolemy and Cleopatra are born king and consort just as they are born brother and sister.
BRITANNUS (shocked): Caesar: this is not proper.
THEODOTUS (outraged): How!
CAESAR (recovering his self-possession): Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.”

George Bernard Shaw Caesar and Cleopatra

Act II; sometimes paraphrased as: The customs of your tribe are not laws of nature.
1890s, Caesar and Cleopatra (1898)

“Give, you gods,
Give to your boy, your Caesar,
The rattle of a globe to play withal,
This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off;
I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.”

John Dryden All for Love

Act II, scene II
All for Love (1678)

“And, curiously, he felt that he was something, somebody, precisely and simply because of that cold threat of death. The terror of the white world had left no doubt in him about his worth; in fact, that white world had guaranteed his worth in the most brutal and dramatic manner. Most surely he was was something, in the eyes of the white world, or it would not have threatened him as it had. That white world, then, threatened as much as it beckoned. Though he did not know it, he was fatally in love with that white world, in love in a way that could never be cured. That white world's attempt to curb him dangerously and irresponsibly claimed him for its own.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

The Long Dream (1958)

“As is so often the case with butlers, there was a good deal of Beach. Julius Caesar, who liked to have men about him who were fat, would have taken to him at once. He was a man who had made two chins grow where only one had been before, and his waistcoat swelled like the sail of a racing yacht.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Galahad at Blandings

Galahad at Blandings (1965)

“He had been alone in the world and empty for so long. But she filled him full, and so he believed everything that had been taken out of him might have been for a purpose. To clear space for something better.”

Charles Frazier book Cold Mountain

Source: Cold Mountain

“He was angry, too, because it would soon be Christmas and he had nothing to give Leslie. It was not that she would expect something expensive; it was that he needed to give her something as much as he needed to eat when he was hungry. […] She wouldn't laugh at him no matter what he gave her. But for his own sake he had to give her something he could be proud of.”

Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia

Jesse Aarons
Bridge to Terabithia (1977)

“For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“He had a bitter pain in his heart, for he knew that she was still a stranger to him and his hungry love was destined ever to remain unsatisfied.”

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer

"The pool", p. 127
Short Stories, Collected short stories 1

“To imagine that Caesar aspired to do something in the way Alexander did it — and this is what almost all historians have believed — is definitely to give up trying to understand him. Caesar is very nearly the opposite of Alexander. …[I]t is not merely a universal kingdom that Caesar has in view. His purpose is a deeper one. He wants a Roman empire which does not live on Rome, but on the periphery, on the provinces, and this implies the complete supersession of the City-State. It implies a State in which the most diverse peoples collaborate, in regard to which all feel solidarity.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XIV: Who Rules The World?

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Laura Riding Jackson42

Related quotes

Related topics