Important Quotes from Hamlet Acts 1 & 2
Act 1.1
1. Horatio (67-69) “In what particular thought to work I know
not; But, in the gross and scope of my opinion, This bodes
some strange eruption in our state”
Act 1.2
1. Hamlet (65) “A little more than kin, and less than kind”
2. Hamlet (146) “Frailty, thy name is woman!”
3. Hamlet (253 -256) “My father’s spirit in arms! All is not
well; I doubt some foul play: would the night were come! Till
then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise, Though all the
earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.
Act 1.3
1. Polonius’ speech (58-81) “ And these few precepts in thy
memory See though character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act Be though familiar,
but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their
adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each newhatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a
quarrel; but, being in, Bear’t that the opposed may beware of
thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each
man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as
thy purse can buy, But not express’d in fancy; rich, not
gaudy: For the apparel oft proclaims the man; And they in
France of the best rank and station Are most select and
generous chief in that. Neither a borrower or a lender be: For
loan oft loses both itself and friend And borrowing dulls the
edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then
be false to any man. Farewell, my blessing this in thee!
2. Ophelia (104) “I do not know, my lord, what I should think”
3. Hamlet (132) “ I would not, in plain terms, from this time
forth, Have you so slander any moment’s leisure, As to give
words or talk with the lord Hamlet. Look to’t, I charge you:
come your ways.
4. Ophelia (135) “I shall obey, my lord.”
Act 1.4
1. Hamlet (23-38) “So oft it chances in particular men…the
dram of evil Doth all the noble substance of a doubt To his
own scandal-“
2. Marcellus (90) “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”
Act 1.5
1. Ghost (25) “Revenge his foul and most unnatural death”
2. Hamlet (42) “O my prophetic soul”
3. Ghost (86) “Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven, and to those
thorns that her bosom lodge, to prick and sting her”
4. Hamlet (110) “That one may smile, and smile and be a
villain”
5. Hamlet (167) “There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy”
6. Hamlet (190) “The time is out of joint; O cursed spirit that
ever I was born to make it right”
Act 2.1
1. Polonius (3-5) “You shall do marvelous wisely, good
Reynaldo, Before you visit him, to make inquiry Of his
behaviour.”
2. Polonius (38-48) “And I believe it is a fetch of
warrant...According to the phrase or the addition Of man and
country.”
Act 2.2
1. Polonius (106) “I have a daughter…who in her duty and
obedience”
2. Polonius (154) “Take this from this, if this be otherwise”
3. Polonius (160) “I’ll loose my daughter on him”
4. Hamlet (172) “You are a fishmonger”
5. Hamlet (180) “Have you a daughter? Let her not walk i’ the
sun”
6. Polonius (219) “These tedius, old fools”
7. Hamlet’s speech on page 111 “I will tell you why…by your
smiling you seem to say so.”
8. Hamlet (376) “I am mad north-north west”
9. Hamlet (545) “O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”
10.
Hamlet (565+) “Am I coward? Who calls me a villain?”
This whole speech is significant