Julius Caesar

And truly Antigonus, it would seem, was not solitary in saying, he loved betrayers, but hated those who had betrayed; nor Cæsar, who told Rhymitalces the Thracian, that he loved the treason, but hated the traitor; but it is the general feeling of all who have occasion for wicked men's service, as people have for the poison of venomous beasts; they are glad of them while they are of use, and abhor their baseness when it is over.

• Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
  • p. 59 ("Plutarch's Lives and Writings", Easton Press, 2021, vol. 1)

Caesar once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and monkeys, embracing and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask whether the women in their country were not used to bear children; by that prince-like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind.

• Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
  • p. 318 ("Plutarch's Lives and Writings", Easton Press, 2021, vol. 1)

Lucan is fair to Caesar, and writes of him an illuminating phrase: nil actum credens cum quid superesset agendum‚"thinking nothing done while anything remained to do."

• Caesar and Christ
  • p. 296 (Easton Press, 1992)

The movement of intelligence over western and southern Europe was as rapid in Caesar's day as at any time before the railway. In 54 B.C. Caesar's letter from Britain reached Cicero at Rome in twenty-nine days; in 1834 Sir Robert Peel, hurrying from Rome to London, required thirty days.

• Caesar and Christ
  • p. 324 (Easton Press, 1992)

My job is to produce the best soldiers in the world. In the whole history of the world. We need a Napoleon. An Alexander. Except that Napoleon lost in the end, and Alexander flamed out and died young. We need a Julius Caesar, except that he made himself dictator, and died for it. My job is to produce such a creature, and all the men and women he'll need to help him.

• Ender's Game
  • p. 25 (Easton Press, 1993)