Cleopatra Quotes

“So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it.”
― Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“I loved him so, even his past was precious to me. I found myself kissing each mark, thinking, I would have had it never happen, I would wish it away, taking him further and further back to a time when he had known no disappointments, no battles, no wounds, as I erased each one. To make him again like Caesarion. Yet if we take the past away from those we love - even to protect them - do we not steal their very selves?”
― Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“Selene’s life is a lesson to us that the trajectory of women’s equality hasn’t always been a forward march. In some ways the ancients were more advanced than we are today; there have been setbacks before and may be more in the future.”
― Stephanie Dray, Lily of the Nile

“These heads sheltered by umbrellas
be they of Zeb-un-Nisa, or Catherine
of Cleopatra or Fenichka
live with their own stories”
― Suman Pokhrel

“Conformity is deformity”
― Sharon Desruisseaux

“Princess," he said, spreading his arms in a shrug, "how does such a little thing like you get such a big temper?"

I held up my hand to shield my eyes from the sun.

"Marc Antony," I said, "how does such a big man like you have such a little brain?”
― Kristiana Gregory, Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile - 57 B.C.

“You must make a choice,” the Goddess said.

“Is that my only choice – to choose between men?” I asked. “I want what Mother had!”

“Your mother chose two men,” she said with light laughter.

“No! She chose independence for her country. She chose power and freedom,” I yelled.

Almost as if in response, a pulsating energy moved up from the ground into my bare feet. It thrummed up my body and radiated out in a bright light, first from my toes, then from my fingertips, then the top of my head.

“I choose power,” I said. “I choose freedom.”
― Vicky Alvear Shecter, Cleopatra's Moon

“How DARE you and the rest of your barbarians set fire to my library? Play conqueror all you want, Mighty Caesar! Rape, murder, pillage thousands, even millions of human beings! But neither you nor any other barbarian has the right to destroy one human thought!”
― sidney buchman

“THOMASINA:
But then the Egyptian noodle made carnal embrace with the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue!”
― Tom Stoppard, Arcadia

“I will even not rant about treachery. I was brought up in a sea of treachery and deceit and betrayal. I swam in it like perch in the Nile. I am completely at home in it. I shall not drown.”
― Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“she did lie
In her pavillion--cloth-of-gold of tissue--
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy out-work nature”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“The horror was, Cleopatra meant something to these modern people of the twentieth century which was altogether wrong. She had become a symbol of licentiousness, when in fact she had possessed a multitude of amazing talents. They had punished her for her one flaw by forgetting everything else…Remembered, but not for what she was. A painted whore lying on a silken couch. - Ramses”
― Anne Rice, The Mummy

“Nay, pray you, seek no color for your going,
But bid farewell and go. When you sued staying,
Then was the time for words. No going then! Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
Bliss in our brows’ bent, none our parts so poor
But was a race of heaven. They are so still,
Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,
Art turned the greatest liar.”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“She did not approach Caesar wrapped in a carpet, she was not a seductress, she did not use her charm to persuade the men in her life to lose their judgement, and she did not die by the bite of an asp…Yet other important elements of her career have been bypassed in the post-antique recension: she was a Skilled naval commander, a published medical authority, and an expert royal administrator who was met with adulation throughout the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps seen by some as a messianic figure, the hope for a future Eastern Mediterranean free of Roman domination.”
― Duane W. Roller, Cleopatra: A Biography

“I rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck voluntarily under her yoke of flowers; I tasted her cup. The pillow was burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste: her promises are hollow- her offers false. I see and know all this.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Greek was her first language, and in Greek literature and culture she was educated. Although representing on Egyptian temples and some statuary in the traditional headgear and robes of the pharaohs’ wives, it was unlikely she actually dressed this way save perhaps occasionally to perform certain rites. Instead she wore the headband and robes of a Greek monarch. Cleopatra proclaimed herself the ‘New Isis’, and yet her worship of the goddess betrayed a strongly Hellenised version of the cult. She was no more Egyptian culturally or ethnically than most residents of modern day Airzona are Apaches.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Antony and Cleopatra

“to rush into the secret house of death...”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“That something is not impossible does not mean that it happened.”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Antony and Cleopatra

“She held a violin delicately tucked in between her soft neck and athletic shoulder, and she was dressed in a white goddess-like gown that pooled on the floor. Wide gold cuffs covered her wrists, dangly earrings hung from her ears and an ornate headband haloed her sharply bobbed black wig. Her eyes were outlined in a smoldering, liquid black, and her lips were the color of blood.
She was dressed as Cleopatra.
Is there a moment in every relationship when it becomes life-threateningly dangerous? When you realize that your heart is so comfortably resting in someone else's hands that should they decide to drop it you would never fully recover? In the case of my relationship with Matilda Duplaine it was at this very moment.”
― Alex Brunkhorst, The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine

“ক্লিওপেট্রা
( আমি বাতাস ও আগুন - শেকসপিয়ার )
অ্যান্টনির মরা ঠোঁটে আগেই ও খেয়েছিল চুমো
সিজারের পায়ে পড়ে হাঁটু গেঁযে নিয়েছিল কেঁদে
চাকরেরা বিশ্বাসঘাতক । মিইয়ে আসা গাঢ় অন্ধকারে
ওকে হেরে যেতে দেখে রোমের ইগলপাখি উল্লাসে বাজাচ্ছে ভেঁপুভেরি ।

ওর কমনীয় রূপে বাঁধা শেষতম লোকটি ঘরে ঢোকে
ঋজু ও রাজকীয় । নিজেরি রানির সামনে তোতলায় :
“দাসি-গোলামের মতো হাঁটাবে তোমাকে রাজপথে, কেননা বিজয়ী !”
শুনেও ও শুয়ে থাকে, হাঁসের মতন গ্রীবা, শান্ত গরিমায় !

ভোর হলে শেকলে বাঁধবে ওর ছেলেমেয়েদের । সামান্য প্রেম
পৃথিবীতে রয়ে গেছে ওর : এও লোকটির সাথে রসিকতা ।
তারপর ছেড়ে দেবে শেষ করুণার মতো বিষধর
শ্যামল বুকের মাঝে আলতো হাতে কালো জীবটাকে ।”
― Anna Akhmatova, Antologia Poética

“क्लियोपेट्रा
(मैं हवा और आग - शेक्सपियर)
एंथनी के मृत होंठ पहले से ही खाए और चूमे जा रहे थे
सीजर के पैर घुटने मोड़कर बैठे थे
सेवक गद्दार होते हैं। घने अंधेरे में
हार को देखते हुए, रोम के ईगलपक्खी तालियों से खेल रहे हैं।

अपने आकर्षक रूप में अंतिम व्यक्ति, घर में प्रवेश किया
लंब और शाही। स्टालिन अपनी रानी के सामने:
"आप सड़क पर एक गुलाम-लड़की की तरह चलेंगे, क्योंकि विजेता!"
वह सुनता है और सोता है, एक बतख की तरह, उष्णकटिबंधीय गर्मी!

भोर में, उसके बच्चे एक चेन बांधेंगे। थोड़ा प्यार
वह अभी भी दुनिया में है: वह भी आदमी के साथ मजाक करता है।
फिर इसे छोड़ना दया की तरह जहरीला होगा
श्यामल छाती के हाथों में काली विशालकाय”
― Anna Akhmatova, Anna Ajmatova

“Cleopatra occupied a dangerous position in the ancient world, a position that is still dangerous in modern society: a powerful woman. Roman leaders launched a smear campaign against her, and its enduring success stained the image the world had of Cleopatra. Instead of brilliant and powerful, she was cast as evil, lustful and wild.”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“The work of Apple Pie Ultra 8 is what I call a Cleopatra. It is a mixture of genre. There is the pulp crime fiction, science-fiction fantasy, religious doctrine, confessional fiction, Western Gothic fiction, autobiographical elements, dark comedy, surrealism, stream of consciousness dream poetry, romantic poetry, culinary fiction. It’s what I would express in a word Cleopatra.”
― Arthur K. Flam

“Fruit of the royalty.”
― Arthur K. Flam

“True way home.”
― Arthur K. Flam

“There is no weakness in grief. There is no weakness in love. No one can rule without them.”
― Anne Rice/Christopher Rice, The Reign of Osiris

“The Peacock & The Eagle: Cleopatra's Entry Into Tarsus by Stewart Stafford

Cleopatra arrives, regal and mighty,
From ocean spray as Aphrodite,
Wealthy and waif, yearning for her,
Dared all to defy her possessive aura.

Mark Antony, struck by her sultry gaze,
Lepidus, prisoner in a bureaucrat's maze,
Sees power slipping from a friend’s hand,
Ensnared by a siren from a scorched land.

Lepidus was Caesar's trusted right hand;
A granule falling through hourglass sand,
Antony, headstrong military provocateur;
Funeral orator from bloody crown auteur.

Bargain's scorpion pincers; no longer twain:
Cleopatra was Ceres, promising Rome grain,
Antony was Mars' armed emissary,
Business and pleasure's flood tributary.

Antony: "Barge of emerald, Elysium's onyx!
Beyond counsel words of sage sardonic,
Gliding the Cydnus's silken seam,
This Nile Helen shall be my queen."

Lepidus: "Pleasure vessel of a floating whore,
Yours for a sesterce on the Tiber's shore,
Honour your oath, noble Roman creed,
Lest passion’s shipwreck sets out to sea.”

"This Venus virago on her mirage barge;
Serpent prow, silver oars, rhythmic charge!
What hubris to think she can equal,
The bloody talons of our Roman eagle!"

Antony: "Feast your eyes past peacock's bower,
She speaks Rome's tongue of naked power.
Mark it, that obsidian Sphinx stings -
Human head, lion's body, eagle wings!

"That is the form she takes to the public:
I smell a perfumed alliance for the Republic!
With Plebeians as her tickled cats, they hum,
I crave her beauty and company. Come!"

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Cleopatra wanted everyone to understand--and remember--that she had his blessing in claiming her place as pharaoh.”
― Susan Blackaby, Cleopatra: Egypt's Last and Greatest Queen

“CLEOPATRA SPEAKS:
I conquered Caesar
yet was slain by Rome
Last true Queen of Egypt

It is not Antony
I speak from cold lips

I whisper, Ô mighty Egypt
Ô mighty Nile
into your glory, I give my spirit”
― Ramon William Ravenswood, Icons Speak

“KLEOPATRA
Yere batsın o Roma, bizi çekiştiren dilleri kopsun!
Bu savaşta benim de göreceğim işler var,
Devletimin başı olarak bir erkeğim ben de burda.
Karşı durma bana; ben gerilerde duramam.”
― William Shakespeare, Antonius ve Kleopatra