The Fault Dear Brutus Is Not

Spoken by Cassius to Brutus in Act I, Scene 2 of Julius Caesar (c. 1599), this is part of a longer speech in which Cassius argues that their subservience to Caesar is a matter of personal choice, not fate. Cassius has just compared Caesar to a Colossus bestriding the world, with lesser men crawling beneath his legs. The speech is a masterwork of rhetorical manipulation: Cassius appeals to Brutus's pride and sense of Roman honour to draw him into the conspiracy, and this particular line — which became the title of John Green's 2012 novel The Fault in Our Stars — has endured as one of Shakespeare's most quoted passages.