Hamlet Quotes
Gertrude: “Good Hamlet, cast thy knighted color off,/ And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark./ Do not for ever with thy
vailed lids/ Seek for thy noble father in the dust” (I, ii, 72-73).
Hamlet: “But I have that within which passeth show--/ These but the trappings and the suits of woe” (I, ii, 90-91).
Claudius: “But to persever/ In obstinate stubbornness. ‘Tis unmanly grief;/ It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,/ A heart
unfortified, a mind impatient,/ An understanding simple and unschooled” (I, ii, 98-103).
Hamlet: “O that this too too solid flesh would melt,/ Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!” (135-136).
Hamlet: “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/ Seem to me all the uses of this world!” (139-140).
Hamlet: “Why, she would hang on him/ As if increase of appetite had grown/ By what it fed on; and yet, within a month--/ Let me not
think on’t! Frailty, thy name is woman!” (I, ii, 149-152).
Hamlet: “O, most wicked speed, to post/ With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” (I, ii, 162-163).
Ghost: “Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,/ With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts--/. . . won to his shameful lust/ The
will of my most seeming-virtuous queen” (I, v, 51-53).
Ghost: “Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive/ Against thy mother aught. Leaver her to heaven,/ And to those thorns that in her
bosom lodge/ To prick and sting her” (I, v, 92-95).
Hamlet: “. . . from the table of my memory/ I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,/. . . and thy commandment alone shall live/ Within
the book and volume of my brain,/ Unmixed with baser matter” (I, v, 106-111).
Hamlet: “. . . I perchance hereafter shall think meet/ To put an antic disposition on. . .” (I, v, 196-197).
Hamlet: “O cursed spite/ That ever I was born to set it right!” (I, v, 215-216).
Polonius: “Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,/ And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,/ I will be brief. Your noble
son is mad” (II, ii, 96-98).
Polonius: “This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me;/ And more above, hat his solicitings,/ As they fell out by time, by means,
and place,/ All given to mine ear” (II, ii, 133-136).
Hamlet: “O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and/ count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I/ have bad dreams” (II,
ii, 270-272).
Hamlet: “Were you not sent for? Is it your own/ inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with/ me. Come, come!” (II, ii,
290-292).
Hamlet: “I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind/ is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw” (II, ii, 388-389).
Hamlet: “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” (II, ii, 556).
Hamlet: “Yet I,/ A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak/ Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,/ And can say nothing!. . . Am I
a coward?” (II, ii, 573-578).
Hamlet: “I have heard/ That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,/ Have by the very cunning of the scene/ Been struck so to the soul that
presently/ They have proclaimed their malefactions;/ For murder, though it have no tongue,/ Will speak with miraculous organ” (II, ii,
596-602).
Hamlet: “The spirit that I have seen/ May be a devil; and the devil hath power/ T’ assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps/ Out of
my weakness and my melancholy,/ As he is very potent with such spirits,/ Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds/ More relative
than this. The play’s the thing/ Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King” (II, ii, 606-613).
Polonius: “Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious so please you,/ We will bestow ourselves” (III, i, 49-50).
Hamlet: “To be, or not to be, that is the question:/ Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune/ Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,/ And by opposing end them” (III, i, 64-68).
Hamlet: “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,/ and thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of
thought,/ And enterprises of great pith and moment/ With this regard their currents turn awry/ And lose the name of action” (III, i, 9196).
Claudius: “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go” (III, i, 199).
Hamlet: “’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on/ than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though/ you can fret me,
you cannot play upon me” (III, ii, 377-379).
Claudius: “I like him not, nor stands it safe with us/ To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;/ I your commission will
forthwith dispatch,/ And he to England shall along with you” (III, iii, 1-4).
Claudius: “O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;/ It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t/ A brother’s murder! Pray can I not,/
Though inclination be as sharp as will” (III, iii, 39-42).
Hamlet: “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;/ And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven,/ And so am I revenged. That would
be scanned. . . . Why this is hire and salary, not revenge!” (III, iii, 76-82).
Hamlet: “Come, come, and sit you down, you shall not/ budge!/ You go not till I set you up a glass/ Where you may see the inmost
part of you” (III, iv, 21-24).
Gertrude: “O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
Hamlet: “A bloody deed—almost as bad, good mother,/ As kill a king, and marry with his brother” (III, iv, 33-35).
Gertrude: “O, speak to me no more!/ These words like daggers enter mine ears. No more, sweet Hamlet!” (III, iv, 107-109).
Ghost: “Do not forget. This visitation/ Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose” (III, iv, 125-126).
Gertrude: “O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain” (III, iv, 177).
Claudius: “How dangerous is it that his man goes loose!/ Yet must not we put the strong law on him./ He’s loved of the distracted
multitude,/ Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes” (IV, iii, 2—5).
Hamlet: “A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom/ And ever three parts coward,--I do not know/ Why yet I live to say,
‘This thing’s to do,’/ Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means/ To do’t” (IV, iv, 44-48).
Hamlet: “O, from this time forth,/ My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” (IV, iv, 67-68).
Laertes: “How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with:/ To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!/ Conscience and grace, to the
profoundest pit! I dare damnation. . . . I’ll be revenged/ Most thoroughly for my father” (IV, v, 141-147).
Laertes: “By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight/ Till our scale turn the beam. O Rose of May!/ Dear maid, kind sister, sweet
Ophelia!” (IV, v, 172-174).
Laertes: “Too much water hast thou, poor Ophelia,/ And therefore I forbid my tears” (IV, vii, 204-205).
Laertes: “I tell thee, churlish priest,/ A minist’ring angel shall my sister be/ When thou liest howling” (V, i, 235-237).
Hamlet: “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/ Could not (with all their quantity of love)/ Make up my sum” (V, i, 270-272).
Horatio: “So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.
Hamlet: “Why, man, they did make love to this employment!/ They are not near my conscience; their defeat/ Does by their own
insinuation grow./ ‘Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes/ Between the pass and fell incensed points/ Of mighty opposites” (V,
ii, 61-68).
Hamlet: “But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart. But it is no matter.
Horatio: “If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit.
Hamlet: “Not a whit, we defy augury; there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to
come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: readiness is all” (V, ii, 210-221).