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Rubicon   /rˈubɪkɔn/   Listen
Rubicon

noun
1.
The boundary in ancient times between Italy and Gaul; Caesar's crossing it with his army in 49 BC was an act of war.
2.
A line that when crossed permits of no return and typically results in irrevocable commitment.  Synonym: point of no return.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Rubicon" Quotes from Famous Books



... forlorn hope indeed, considering the perfection which that formidable organization had reached. Its cherished objects were not meant to be abandoned. The advice of "Bond" leaders prevailed. War was declared and the Rubicon crossed in enthusiastic expectations of soon realizing the long-deferred Bond motto: "The expulsion ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... I had 'crossed the Rubicon,' however; and, ever after this, when at home of an afternoon, sometimes with Mick, who, of course, imitated me, sometimes without him on those occasions when he did not get permission to go ashore, I used to have ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... died in 1847; and when Morris came of age he inherited a fortune of about L900 a year and was his own master. Before the end of 1855 he imparted to his mother his decision about taking Orders. The Rubicon was crossed; but on which road he was to reach his goal was not settled for many years. Twice he had to retrace his steps from a false start and begin a fresh career. The year 1856 saw him still working at Oxford, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... one occasion it arrived before the jury under the name of the "Passage of the Rubicon!" but Pharaoh, poorly disguised under Caesar's mantle, was recognized and repulsed with all the honors that ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... with ladies and married people. To a bachelor, to whom she has just been introduced, she will chatter away nineteen to the dozen; but, even in her own, house, she has no idea of the social duties. Marriage, in her opinion, is a Rubicon, which, once crossed, if it does not altogether debar from the pleasures of maiden and bachelorhood, at least makes it necessary for married folk to shift for themselves. To talk or dance with a married man would ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... The leaders on both sides armed their followers, and bloody battles were fought in the streets. Generals led their armies to Rome, although, according to the laws, to bring an army into Italy south of the Rubicon River was to make war on the republic and be guilty of treason. Once in the city these generals put to death hundreds of ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton

... Warmfield, or Dewsbury, there would have been nothing remarkable in it; but Utica at once revived the scenes at school long past and half-forgotten, and carried me with full speed back again to Italy, and from thence to Africa. I crossed the Rubicon with Caesar; fought at Pharsalia; saw poor Pompey into Larissa, and tried to wrest the fatal sword from Cato's hand in Utica. When I perceived he was no more, I mourned over the noble-minded man who took that part which he thought would most benefit ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... is no longer a lad, a pretty boy to be trifled with for the amusement of an idle hour. The Cupid's bow had faded forever from his lip and childhood's innocence from his eye; he has crossed life's Rubicon, has passed at one stride from the Vale of Youth with its trifles and its idle tears, its ignorance of sex and stainless love, to Manhood's rugged mountains, where blazes Ambition's baleful star and the fires of passion ever beat, fiercer than those ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... was originally applied to a very small tract of country. It was at first confined to the southern portion of Calabria, and was gradually extended northward, till about the time of the Punic wars it indicated the whole peninsula south of the Rivers Rubicon and Macra, the former separating Cisalpine Gaul and Umbria, the latter Liguria and Etruria. Italy, properly so called, is a very mountainous country, being filled up more or less by the broad mass of the Apennines, the offshoots ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... be met in the same way. As with nervous pain it seems at first impossible to "relax to it;" but the Rubicon once crossed, we cannot long be irritable,—it is so much simpler not to be, and so much ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... slowly making his way from the box. Soon his fears subsided, and it was presumed that no one was any the wiser on account of the accident, or coughing. Thus, after summoning courage, he laid hold of the box a third time, and the Rubicon was passed. The car driver, totally ignorant of the contents of the box, drove to the number to which he was directed to take it—left it and went about his business. Now is a moment of intense interest—now of inexpressible delight. The box ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... most alarming. Caesar and Pompey were in antagonism. He must choose between them, and he distrusted both. Caesar was the more able, accomplished, and magnanimous, but he was the more unscrupulous and dangerous. He had ventured to cross the Rubicon,—the first general who ever dared thus openly to assail his country's liberties. Pompey was pompous, overrated, and proud, and had been fortunate in the East. But then he sided with the Constitutional authorities,—that is, with the Senate,—so far as his ambition allowed. So Cicero took his side ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... meetings. This council, which had long been called "Parliament" (from parler), in the year 1265 became for the first time a representative body, when Simon de Montfort summoned not alone the lords and bishops—but two citizens from every city, and two burghers from every borough. A Rubicon was passed when the merchant, and the shopkeeper, sat for the first time with the noble and the bishops in the great council. It was thirty years before the change was fully effected, it being in the ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... that he was not sorry when the carriage was at the door to bear him away, before (shall it be confessed?) his tears had got the mastery over him. As it was, by the judicious help of his sisters, he passed the Rubicon in courageous style, and went through the form of breakfast with the greatest hilarity, although with several narrow escapes of suffocation from choking. The thought that he was going to be an Oxford MAN fortunately ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... the composure of death. The malaria has travelled in the paths worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have mourned over the loss of her empire. A mortal disease was upon her vitals before Csar had crossed the Rubicon; and Brutus did not restore her health by the deep probings of the senate-chamber. The Goths, and Vandals, and Huns,—the swarms of the North,—completed only what was already begun at home. Romans betrayed Rome. The legions ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... a gesture—the gesture of a Caesar crossing the Rubicon—and by doing so escaped entering into any verbal engagement. As he was about to withdraw, his mother, looking for the knot in his sling, remarked: "First of all, you must let me take off this rag. It's getting a little ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... understood that the author was never to get beyond that passage until he had acknowledged it absurd and egregiously foolish, anybody who knows anything about the genus irritabile will be certain, that if he lived till "the crack of doom," Don Silva would never have passed the Rubicon. It was thus that the poor fellow was tormented: and every time that he was asked to dine in the cabin, he was requested to bring his Tour, in order that the whole of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... after the German peace action had failed, the definite decision to declare unrestricted submarine war was taken in Pless on the 9th January. In this way, as the Chancellor said, the Rubicon was crossed. War with the United States seemed inevitable, unless it were found possible at the eleventh hour to annul the decision of the German Government. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg has declared before the Commission of the National Assembly that he had not sufficient faith ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... we arrived at the picturesque entry into Dunkirk, with its drawbridge and mediaeval towers and grey city wall; here our passes were again examined, and there was a long queue of cars waiting to get through as we drew up. Once "across the Rubicon" we sped through the town and in time came to Furnes with its quaint old market place. Already the place was showing signs of wear and tear. Shell holes in some of the roofs and a good many broken panes, together with the general air of desertion, ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... by distribution over a wide surface. The very phrase gold mine is delusive. Secundo: Gold is a metal that cannot be worked to a profit by a company for this reason: workmen will hunt it for others so long as the daily wages average higher than the amount of metal they find per diem; but, that Rubicon once passed, away they run to find gold for themselves in some spot with similar signs; if they stay, it is to murder your overseers and seize your mine. Gold digging is essentially an individual speculation. These shares sell at 700 pounds apiece; a dozen of them are not ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... known, or knowable, in physical analysis, which will be the point of departure as well as your ultimate truth behind which you can not go, then, of course, you are where you must rest satisfied or dissatisfied; you have come to the Rubicon beyond which you will never pass. The mere physicist finds, as a legitimate result of his hypothesis of but one substance, his rest in the ultimate of eternal matter and blind force. The Christian, recognizing spiritual substance also, finds his ultimate or resting place ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various

... came across the Alps into Cisalpine Gaul, which as yet had not been legally taken from him, and in the autumn sat himself down at Ravenna, which was still within his province. It was there that he had to meditate the crossing of the Rubicon and the manifestation of absolute rebellion. Matters were in this condition when Cicero returned to Italy, and heard the corroboration of the news as to the civil war which had reached ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... had, in November, 1838, promised them to send a consul to New Zealand to supersede poor Mr. Busby, but the permanent officials thwarted him, and nothing was done for eight months. At last, in May, 1839, Gibbon Wakefield crossed the Rubicon. As the Government persisted in treating New Zealand as a foreign country, let the Company do the same, and establish settlements there as in a foreign land! Since repeated efforts to obtain the help and sanction ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... crews, averaged 11,876; or excluding male hangers-on from the one side and passengers from the other side, residents averaged 5,660 and visitors 5,435. Figures no longer yielded an uncertain sound. The Rubicon was only just crossed, but was indisputably and irrevocably crossed. Thenceforth the living-rooms were larger than the corridors, and political arithmetic pointed at the permanent occupants as the men of destiny. In 1764 the new tilt of the balance struck the law officers of the Crown, ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

... of January 1831, the Rubicon was passed. The step, though momentous in any case to Madame Dudevant, was one whose ultimate consequences were by none less anticipated than by herself, when to town she came, still undecided whether her future destiny were to decorate screens and tea-caddies, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... poverty in our midst." She raised her head and looked round the room. No, there was nothing left to sell or pawn—for her dire necessity had driven her to the pawnshop, that last refuge of the destitute, that dire rubicon which, having passed it, a girl like Celia feels is the last barrier between ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... perhaps in the tail too, before all end! "Botta urged and entreated that at least there should be some delay in executing this project. But the King gave him to understand that it was now too late, and that the Rubicon was passed." [Friedrich's own ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... papers with you.' She held them out to me as she spoke. 'The Prince has crossed the Rubicon now, and nothing can bring him back. You can return these to the Emperor, and tell him that we refused to receive them. No one can accuse you then of having lost your despatches. Good-bye, Colonel Gerard, and the best I can wish you is that when you reach France you may remain there. In a year's ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the rescue," and exclaimed, "Now's your time, Ned,—Pipe the boarders away—all hands,—! if you're a man as loves a woman. Now, go it," said he, and dashed furiously over all obstacles,—fiddles, flutes, and fiddlers. Smash went the foot-lights—Caesar had passed the Rubicon. The contagion of feeling became general; and his trusty legions, fired with the ambition that inspired their leader, followed, sweeping all before them, till the whole male population of the theatre crowded the stage ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various

... of it, Mrs. Armine crossed a Rubicon. She crossed it when she came out of the big tent into the sands to go back to the camp by the lake. While she had been with Baroudi the sky had partially cleared. Above the tents and the blazing ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... reaching a conclusion. As soon as conventions could be assembled, the States joined the Confederacy and began levying troops to resist invasion. Tennessee followed Virginia, then Arkansas, the Old North State being the last of the Atlantic and Gulf States to cross the Rubicon into the "plains of Southern independence." The troops that had been called for six months were now disbanded, and those who had enlisted for twelve months for State service were called upon to volunteer in the Confederate Army for the unexpired ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... open resistance excited the rioters still more—they had passed the Rubicon, and were now ready for anything, and "to the jail! to the jail!" arose in wild yells, and the turbulent mass poured like a tumultuous sea around the building. They rushed against the doors, and with united shoulders and bodies endeavored to heave ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... of the Barons had broken out. From that hour she scarcely dared to hope; her calm sense, unblinded by the high-wrought genius which, as too often happens, made the Tribune see harsh realities through a false and brilliant light, perceived that the Rubicon was passed; and through all the events that followed she could behold but two images—danger to her ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... dishonor, in an idle attempt to patch up a peace that, from the nature of the case, could have been but temporary, if obtained on such terms. The people of the Northern States had set their faces resolutely against secession and, led by Lincoln, had crossed the Rubicon and taken up the gage of battle, which had been thrown down ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... backbone of unremitting apprenticeship in loving service for the father who had built for him in love. Though his head split, he would master every detail of the business. And when Jack stepped into the Rubicon he did not splash around or look back. He went right over to the new country ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... powerful and well disciplined army that was devoted to him, Caesar advanced on Rome. When he came to a stream called the Rubicon, which marked the limit of his power as governor of Gaul, he hesitated for a brief time, as there was still time for him to draw back from his tremendous venture had he seen fit to do so—but at length he plunged into the stream with the remark, "The die is cast," and advanced ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... ever done in the world? Has it built any cities? Has it invented any telephones, any telegraphs? Has it built any steamships, established any universities, any asylums, any hospitals? Was there any chance in Caesar's crossing the Rubicon? What had chance to do with Napoleon's career, with Wellington's, or Grant's, or Von Moltke's? Every battle was won before it was begun. What had luck to do with Thermopylae, Trafalgar, Gettysburg? Our successes we ascribe to ourselves; ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... He crossed the Rubicon of a door-mat and stood in the unlighted hall. At the far end he saw light coming from a door that he knew opened ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... are forced. I cannot give assent to my own shame 150 And ruin. Thou—no—thou canst not forsake me! So let us do, what must be done, with dignity, With a firm step. What am I doing worse Than did famed Csar at the Rubicon, When he the legions led against his country, 155 The which his country had delivered to him? Had he thrown down the sword, he had been lost, As I were, if I but disarmed myself. I trace out something in me of his spirit. Give me his luck, that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... weapons they could find when the sale of arms, ammunition, and salt was prohibited. Detachments were despatched to the Mansu and Prahsu stations; the latter is upon the Bosom (Abosom, or Sacred) Prah, the frontier between Ashanti and the Protectorate, to cross which is to 'pass the Rubicon.' Here, as at other main fords and ferries, defensive works were laid out. Arrangements were made for holding nine out of the eighteen forts, abandoning the rest; and Accra was strengthened as the central place. The 'companies,' or 'native levies,' ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... with an eagerness somewhat deeper than the mannish pride of youths who have just crossed the Rubicon that divides them from their much-scorned 'teens.' "I have advanced, and you seem to have stood still; there is scarcely any difference between us now." And Olive, somewhat amused, let her ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... the latter answered quickly. "We change. Read First Corinthians, seventh chapter, and if you take Paul's advice and don't pass the Rubicon, then you 'll be free to change as often as ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... verbis istorum est, ac si auribus lupum teneas. Tu vero da operam, et cum primum Petrus responderit, me de eo facias certiorem: nam hoc solum expecto" (Ep. I. 21). From this time his mind was made up: he would leap the Rubicon: he would go in for the forgery, and his friend must have confidence in him. So speaking of his powers for the great task which he meditated he proceeds thus interestingly in the letter to Niccoli bearing date London, the 10th of June, 1422: "I want you to have no distrust: give me the leisure and ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... felt that if ever she let go her hold on them she would lose faith in human happiness, and thus in life itself. For between Lois Travers the woman and Lois Travers the light-hearted, high-spirited girl there stretched a year's gulf. Marriage had been to her what it is more or less to all women—a Rubicon, a Book of Revelations in which girlish ideals are rarely realized, ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... read the letter again very carefully, folded and put it away. What had come to Violet? This was so unlike her. Still, he had to confess to himself that he was relieved at not yet having to cross the Rubicon. Perhaps she was right; it might be better to wait. He was glad to know that for a time at least she was away from the uncongenial surroundings of Rohar and again enjoying life. He went through the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... the Alps, his mighty soul Great tumults pondering and the coming shock. Now on the marge of Rubicon, he saw, In face most sorrowful and ghostly guise, His trembling country's image; huge it seemed Through mists of night obscure; and hoary hair Streamed from the lofty front with turrets crowned: Torn were her locks and naked were her arms. Then thus, with broken sighs the Vision ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... the main stream of traffic. A postman, clearing the letter-box at the office, stopped his work momentarily to read the contents of a postcard. For the moment I understood Caesar's feelings on the brink of the Rubicon, and the emotions of Cortes "when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific." I was on the threshold of great events. Behind me was orthodox ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... attack," said he, and he slapped on every stitch of canvas, so that the Emilie was soon abreast of the Britisher. Boom! A broadside roared into her and she struck her colors. Bold Robert Surcouf had passed the Rubicon,—he had seen the English flag lowered to him, for the first time; and his heart swelled with patriotic pride, in spite of the fact that this was an act of piracy, for which he could be hanged ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... reluctant Caesar who thus crossed the Rubicon, at whose fateful margin he had stood at other crises of his peaceful reign without ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... Paris was that he might submit to the Academy of Sciences his invention of an iron bridge, and with its favorable verdict he came to England, in September. He at once went to his aged mother at Thetford, leaving with a publisher (Ridgway), his "Prospects on the Rubicon." He next made arrangements to patent his bridge, and to construct at Rotherham the large model of it exhibited on Paddington Green, London. He was welcomed in England by leading statesmen, such as Lansdowne and Fox, and above all ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... republican; namely,—that he would have no objection to a king, or to Caesar, a monarch in Rome, would Caesar but be as good a monarch as he now seems disposed to be! How, too, could Brutus say that he found no personal cause—none in Caesar's past conduct as a man? Had he not passed the Rubicon? Had he not entered Rome as a conqueror? Had he not placed his Gauls in the Senate?—Shakespeare, it may be said, has not brought these things forward—True;—and this is just the ground of my perplexity. What character did Shakespeare ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... I have passed the Rubicon," he thought, "and know past doubting that she has the love of my life, and that life without her, will be worse than death," this he thought, seated near this fair woman; near, and far, for he must not speak to her with this cloud upon his name; he knew it was false and ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... off in the steamer. After the exhibition of meanness on the part of Mr. Parasyte, it seemed that the rebellion was more serious than any of us had supposed. We made up our minds, with Bob Hale, that it would be impossible for us ever to be reconciled to him again. We felt as though the Rubicon had been passed, and what had commenced as a mere frolic was likely to end as a very grave affair. Though the boys talked solemnly at first about their rights, and had "struck" to vindicate a principle, they had no idea of the seriousness ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... prophecies, please! Besides, it's too late to draw back, or to even think of retreat. The Rubicon ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... he had used to look from the outside only; that he looked with a charity of which he had never dreamed, and that he was amazingly content. And as he got into bed he thought that when next he slept in town he would not be alone. He would have crossed Tommy's Rubicon. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... arranged, or that which I desired. It seemed to me that every available moment must be given to the moulding of her heart, to preparation for the last crucial test, when I should ask her to sacrifice everything, and cross the Channel and the Rubicon with me. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... Caesar an army, and Gaul to conquer. Crassus, brave general, too, is slain in battle in far Parthia, and Pompey steals a march by getting a long term in Spain. Caesar demands as much and is refused by Pompey's friends. Then the storm breaks and Caesar comes back from Gaul to cross the Rubicon, and take all Italy in sixty days. Pompey, ambitious, ill-starred, fights losing battles everywhere. Murdered at last in Egypt, he, too, is dead, and Caesar stands alone, master of Rome and of the world. One year he ruled, and then they slew him; but no one of them that struck ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... crossed the Rubicon Julius Caesar was staggered at the greatness of the undertaking before him. The more he reflected and took counsel of his friends, the greater loomed the difficulties of the attempt and the more appalling the calamities his passage ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton

... Look big as mine: the gallant, jolly beast Of all the herd—you'll say—was not the least. Now crown the second bowl, rich as his worth I'll drink it to; he, that like fire broke forth Into the Senate's face, cross'd Rubicon, And the State's pillars, with their laws thereon, And made the dull grey beards and furr'd gowns fly Into Brundusium to consult, and lie. This, to brave Sylla! why should it be said We drink more to ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... crossed the Rubicon. In the opinion of all those who know most about the case, the forward movement is now beyond recall. Indeed, when the intense hostility of the Border tribes, the uncertain attitude of the Amir, the possibilities of further Russian aggression and the state of feeling ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill

... mangled wretches, they beheld Piero of Medicina, a sower of dissension, exhibiting to them his face and throat all over wounds; and Curio, compelled to shew his tongue cut out for advising Caesar to cross the Rubicon; and Mosca de' Lamberti, an adviser of assassination, and one of the authors of the Guelf and Ghibelline miseries, holding up the bleeding stumps of his arms, which dripped on his face. "Remember Mosca," cried ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... o'er the great grey gleaming sea They swept with their rich booty, night and day. Five other prizes, one for every ship, Out of the seas of Spain they suddenly caught And carried with them, laughing as they went— "Now, now indeed the Rubicon is crossed; Now have we singed the eyelids and the beard Of Spain; now have we roused the hornet's nest; Now shall we sail against a world in arms; Now we have nought between us and black death But our own hands, five ships, and three score guns." So laughed they, plunging ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... life by going on with these ways—it is unthinkable!" and his deep voice vibrated with feeling. "It is a mistake, that is all, and can be rectified,—if you were already married to this man I would not plead so, because then you would have crossed the Rubicon, and assumed responsibilities which you would have to accept or suffer the consequences. But this preliminary bond can be broken without hurt to either side. A man of the good clergyman's type will not suffer in his emotions at the loss ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn



Words linked to "Rubicon" :   dividing line, boundary, demarcation, bound, point of no return, line, contrast, bounds



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