Which of the following phrases best explains brutus's concerns about caesar potentially becoming king? a. "absolute power corrupts." b. "the past has no power over the present moment." c. "power doesn't corrupt people. people corrupt power." d. "the power of choice is one of the greatest powers given to man."

The right answer is A. In the first scene of Act 2, Brutus is wondering whether killing Caesar is the right course of action and he thinks that if Caesar were to be crowned it would "change his nature". Later on, he uses the metaphor of the ladder to represent the climb to power and says that once men have climbed all the way to the top, they have nothing but scorn towards everything below them: "But when he once attains the upmost round / He then unto the ladder turns his back / Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees / By which he did ascend. So Caesar may."