Shakespeare or Julius Caesar Quote About War And Personal Rights-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
A quote attributed to Shakespeare or Julius Caesar warns about the seductive nature of war and that citizens who get caught up in the emotions of it could lose their rights as a result.
The Truth:
The exact quote is below, but there is no evidence that it originated in antiquity.
TruthOrFiction.com has searched the complete works of Shakespeare and the writings of Julius Caesar as well as other historic texts and has not found this quote in any of them. Some emails have claimed that it is a quote from Julius Caesar’s writings about THE GALLIC WARS, but there is nothing of this nature in those texts. We’ve also searched several collections of quotes without success.
According to our records, this quote started appearing on the Internet toward the end of 2001 and usually appeared in emails, articles, or newsletters that dealt with the subject or war or the risk of losing personal rights during a time of war. That was a hot topic of discussion after the Attack on America and debate on how to best deal with the threat of terrorism in the United States.
Update 10/1/02, entertainer Barbara Streisand admitted in the Washington Post that she got duped by this circulated quote and used it during a $6 million Democratic fund-raiser in Hollywood on September 30, 2002. She later corrected it on her website and said she learned a lesson from it.
We would suggest that the lesson is to check with TruthOrFiction.com before using quotes from forwarded emails!
Last updated 10/1/02