The Fault In Our Stars
Did this saying pre-date the novel and film?
This is a line from Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Cassius is trying to explain to Brutus that their current lives were not due to fate (“not in our stars”).
Why I Looked It Up
In a 1980 episode of Buck Rogers, Dr. Goodfellow refers to “the fault in our stars.” This caught my ear because I only knew the phrase as the title of the 2012 young adult novel and the 2014 movie adaption.