- Aurelia: If you marry Cinna's daughter you will be identified with the popular party whether you wish or not.
- Caesar: I wish it.
- Aurelia: They are not our people.
- Cousin: You wish to join with farmers and hagglers and beggars?
- Caesar: Our family itself did not exactly drop straight out of Jupiter's ass.
- [Brutus is reading]
- Caesar: Let me see... Plato's laws? Do you read this?
- Marcus Brutus: Yes.
- Caesar: And, what did you think of it?
- Marcus Brutus: Well Plato thinks that democracy is doomed to failure; he thinks that a state should be run by a dictator, a dictator who's become enlightened through experience and learning.
- Caesar: I don't think that your Plato would get on with your Uncle Cato.
- Lucius Cornelius Sulla: [to the Roman Senate] Your feet never touch the ground, your ass has never touched a horse! How can you possibly... represent the people whom most of you have never even met?
- [of Caesar]
- Marcus Brutus: He spared my life.
- Caius Cassius: And took the life of Cato, your wife's father who treated you like a son... Has Portia ceased her mourning?
- Marcus Brutus: No... and neither have I.
- Caius Cassius: So, you're mourning over Cato's death?
- Marcus Brutus: Cassius, yes, I and grieving... but private affections and public duty are not the same thing.
- Caius Cassius: And yet they say that in your grief that you just weep and say prayers... and fill your wife's drinking cup and go to bed... And when Caesar comes to you tonight, you'll be like his boy, filling his cup too.
- Marcus Brutus: *Who* is saying this? Who?
- [Comic portrayals of Caesar and Cleopatra are being played on the stage]
- Play Actor: [Playing Caesar] You kissed me with the tongue of a serpent!
- Play Actor: [Playing Cleopatra] I must taste you to see if you are poisoned!
- Play Actor: And am I?
- Play Actor: No, but I can taste Gaul.
- Play Actor: [Playing Cleopatra] Will you stay with me in Egypt, Caesar?
- Play Actor: [Playing Caesar] What has Egypt got to offer that Rome does not?
- Play Actor: Have you heard of the 'fertile cresent?'
- Play Actor: No... is it a region down below?
- Play Actor: [Lifts leg] Indeed it is! Ha!
- Play Actor: What grows there?
- Play Actor: I believe a region fertile enough to hatch a king. If you doubt it, try planting something there.
- Caesar: [interviewing a prospective tutor for his daughter] Sophistry? Uh, doesn't that mean you know how to tell fancy lies?
- Appolonius: There's great power in ambiguity, sir, but not all men use advantages to wicked ends.
- Caesar: Are you experienced teaching the young?
- Appolonius: Yes, I much prefer it to teaching the old.
- Caesar: Why is that?
- Appolonius: Because they exhibit more wisdom.
- [on Appolonius]
- Portia: I'll bet he ran off to fight with the rebel slaves.
- Julia: *Those* slaves are not like Appolonius. They aren't educated men with happy homes.
- Portia: Well, we had a Morish cook who ran off about a month ago to join the rebels. We heard he had been promoted to commander. From cook to commander! It's so inspiring...
- Marcus Brutus: You talk of it as if it's a game, Portia.
- Portia: I don't!
- [to Portia on slave rebellions]
- Marcus Brutus: Think about it; over half of the population of Rome is made up of slaves. What would happen if they all decided to rebel? It would be the end of Rome.
- Portia: You take the inspiration out of everything!
- Marcus Brutus: Rome had to act.
- Julia: What do you mean?
- Marcus Brutus: Pompey.