Friendship Quotes - Julius Caesar | Julius Caesar- Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

CASSIUS 

Brutus, I do observe you now of late.

I have not from your eyes that gentleness

And show of love as I was wont to have.

You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand

Over your friend that loves you.

BRUTUS

Cassius, 

Be not deceived. If I have veiled my look,

I turn the trouble of my countenance

Merely upon myself. Vexèd I am

Of late with passions of some difference,

Conceptions only proper to myself,

Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviors.

But let not therefore my good friends be grieved

(Among which number, Cassius, be you one)

Nor construe any further my neglect

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,

Forgets the shows of love to other men. (1.2.37-53)

It's obvious that male bonds are a big deal to the characters in the play. When Cassius asks Brutus why he's been so distant lately, Brutus goes out of his way to apologize to his pal for neglecting their friendship. 

CASSIUS

And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus.

Were I a common laugher, or did use

To stale with ordinary oaths my love

To every new protester; if you know

That I do fawn on men and hug them hard

And after scandal them, or if you know

That I profess myself in banqueting

To all the rout, then hold me dangerous. (1.2.77-84)

Here Cassius tries to convince Brutus that he would make a better leader than Brutus' friend, Julius Caesar. Although Cassius claims he would never try to manipulate a friend, his excessive flattery seems to suggest otherwise. 

BRUTUS

I would not, Cassius, yet I love him well. (1.2.89)

When Cassius asks Brutus if he would want Julius Caesar to be crowned king, Brutus says that even though he loves Caesar, he doesn't want him to be a monarch. (Remember, the idea of a monarch ruling Rome with absolute power went against the ideals of the Roman Republic.)

CASCA 

O, he sits high in all the people's hearts,

And that which would appear offence in us,

His countenance, like richest alchemy,

Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

CASSIUS 

Him and his worth and our great need of him

You have right well conceited. (1.3.162-167)

Earlier we saw Cassius try to flatter his friend Brutus into believing that he would make a better Roman leader than Caesar (1.2).  Now it seems pretty obvious that Cassius was trying to manipulate his pal, because here he acknowledges that the conspirators want Brutus on their side. He's popular with the commoners and will make the plotters against Caesar look "virtu[ous]" rather than "offen[sive]."   

CASSIUS

Caesar said to me 'Dar'st thou, Cassius, now

Leap in with me into this angry flood

And swim to yonder point?' Upon the word,

Accoutred as I was, I plungèd in

And bade him follow; so indeed he did.

The torrent roared, and we did buffet it

With lusty sinews, throwing it aside

And stemming it with hearts of controversy.

But ere we could arrive the point proposed,

Caesar cried 'Help me, Cassius, or I sink!'

I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder

The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber

Did I the tired Caesar. And this man

Is now become a god, and Cassius is

A wretched creature and must bend his body

If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. (1.2.109-125)

In this passage Cassius relates a story that suggests that male friendship, from an early age, is marked by potentially deadly competition and rivalry. When a young Caesar double-dog-dared Cassius, his childhood friend, to swim across the Tiber River, it nearly cost Caesar his life.  Cassius saved the "wretched creature" from drowning, so it's infuriating that now he has to bow every time he sees him in the street. 

CAESAR

Et tu, Brutè?—Then fall, Caesar. (3.1.85)

This is one of the most famous and moving lines in literature.  After being stabbed by his so-called pals (33 times, according to Octavius in 5.1), Caesar looks up at his friend and says something like "Even you, Brutus?  I thought we were homies!"    

CASSIUS 

Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life

Cuts off so many years of fearing death.

BRUTUS

Grant that, and then is death a benefit.

So are we Caesar's friends, that have abridged

His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop,

And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood

Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords. (3.1.113-119)

After stabbing Caesar in the back (and the guts, arms, legs, and chest), Cassius and Brutus reason that they've done their pal a favor: now that Caesar's dead, he no longer has to worry about dying. Then Brutus has another good idea – the conspirators should wash their hands in their friend's blood to signal that they've freed Rome from tyranny. 

BRUTUS

If there be any in this assembly, any dear 

friend of Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love 

to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend 

demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my 

answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved

Rome more. (3.2.19-24)

According to Brutus, his decision to assassinate Caesar came down to a choice between his love for Rome and his love for his friend.  Does Brutus' sense of patriotism justify his decision to kill his friend? 

CASSIUS

Strike as thou didst at Caesar, for I know

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him 

   better

Than ever thou lovedst Cassius. (4.3.116-119)

Cassius sure knows how to fight dirty.  When he argues heatedly with Brutus, he throws Brutus' betrayal of Caesar in his friend's face and accuses Brutus of not loving him (Cassius) as much as he loved the man he helped kill.  As nasty as he is, we think Cassius raises a valid point.  How is one supposed to feel about his so-called pals when best friends think nothing of killing each other over political matters? 

BRUTUS 

When I spoke that, I was ill-temper'd too.

CASSIUS 

Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.

BRUTUS 

And my heart too.

CASSIUS 

                            O Brutus! (4.3.131-135)

After a heated argument that sounds more like a lovers' quarrel than a fight between friends, Brutus and Cassius finally kiss and make up, so to speak. 

ANTONY 

This was the noblest Roman of them all.

All the conspirators save only he

Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.

He only in a general honest thought

And common good to all made one of them. (5.5.74-78)

These days, we tend not wage war against our friends and then stand over their dead bodies waxing poetic about how "noble" they were.  But in Julius Caesar, this kind of behavior is par for the course.