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John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Page 111

 
 
William Shakespeare. (1564–1616) (continued)
 
1285
    Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
          Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
1286
    He reads much;
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men.
          Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
1287
    Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock’d himself, and scorn’d his spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything.
          Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
1288
    But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.
          Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
1289
    ’T is a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost 1 round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
          Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
1290
    Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
          Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
1291
    A dish fit for the gods.
          Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
1292
    But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
          Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
1293
    Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter;
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber:
Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep’st so sound.
          Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
 
Note 1.
”Utmost” in Singer. [back]