Origin
The term is most-likely a reference to the Rubicon river, which in the time of the Roman Empire marked the boarded between Cisapline Gaul and Italy proper. Crossing the river with an army, as Julius Caesar did in 49 B.C., was illegal by Roman law and is commonly seen as the "point-of-no-return" for Caesar's revolution. As such, a "rubicon" can be used idiomatically as any strict dividing line or point-of-no-return.
Read more about this topic: Cerebral Rubicon
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“We have got rid of the fetish of the divine right of kings, and that slavery is of divine origin and authority. But the divine right of property has taken its place. The tendency plainly is towards ... “a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.””
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)