Who said the evil that men do lives after them?

Answer 1

William Shakespeare said it. Actually, his character Mark Anthony says it in the play Julius Ceaser in Act 3, Scene 2. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones, # "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones...", said by Mark Antony as part of his funeral oration after the murder of the emperor Caesar, in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. Antony is allowed to speak only after he promises Brutus that he will not speak ill of the conspirators, who claimed that they killed Caesar for the good of Rome. As if to comply with the instructions he had been given, Antony begins by saying, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him," followed by the sentence about evil deeds outliving those who commit them. With this beginning, he gives the impression that he agrees that Caesar was evil. In the rest of the speech, however, with a mixture of fact, innuendo and sarcasm, he reminds the crowd of Caesar's good qualities and rouses them against the conspirators. (For example, with "He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man.") This is a classic of political speech by a leader who uses subtlety and oratorical skill rather than overt calls to action to persuade listeners to his viewpoint.