William Shakespeare Quotes
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, Than such a Roman.
Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, Simon & Schuster, 1992, p. 145.
President Andrew Johnson had been impeached by the House of Representatives and was being tried in by the Senate. A majority of the Senators voted for conviction but the vote was 1 short of the two-thirds that were needed. Johnson remained in office. One of the major accusations against Johnson was that he had appointed Southern rebels to positions.
Napoleon was referring to vices like alcohol, opium, and tobacco which could be taxed heavily with much support of many citizens. This could finance the nation. That was the logic of the quote.
She was in deep trouble for her writings. She had earlier tried to stave off a revolution by getting the King, the nobility, the clergy and the politicians to compromise, and she predicted the sad outcome if they did not. During the Reign of Terror she spoke out against the vengeance killing that was so prevalent and alienated herself to many of the fanatics. She realized that she could be arrested any day. Yet she wrote this document which the extremists found even more incriminating. She was arrested a few weeks later, tried and executed. As she predicted, France and the historical scholarly world remembered her accurate predictions and warnings, and her “civic virtue”. Check out her other quotations in this collection.
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. They also continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
