Hamlet quotes

Aside.

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Not so, my lord; I am too much i’ the sun.

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour 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: Thou know’st ’tis common;

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: So excellent a king;

Heaven and earth! Must I remember? 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!

— A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she follow’d my poor father’s body, Like Niobe, all tears:—why she, even she— O, God!

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

There; my blessing with thee! And these few precepts in thy memory See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion’d thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those 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 new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;

Give every man thy 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 of a most select and generous chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all:

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 of a most select and generous chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell:

And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.

I do know, When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter, Giving more light than heat, extinct in both, Even in their promise, as it is a-making, You must not take for fire.

Have after. To what issue will this come?

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Nay, let’s follow him. Exeunt.

But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porpentine: But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood.

And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain, Unmix’d with baser matter: yes, by heaven! O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! My tables—meet it is I set it down,

That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;

At least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark: Writing. So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word; It is “Adieu, adieu! remember me.” I have sworn’t.

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

But come;

And what so poor a man as Hamlet is May do, to express his love and friending to you, God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together; And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.

The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!

Nay, come, let’s go together. Exeunt.

or perchance, “I saw him enter such a house of sale,” Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth. See you now; Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth: And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, With windlasses and with assays of bias,

By indirections find directions out:

So by my former lecture and advice, Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?

This business is well ended. My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief: your noble son is mad: Mad call I it; for, to define true madness, What is’t but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go.

Aside.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.

Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.—My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.

Fare you well, my lord.

Why then, your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for your mind.

O God, I could be bounded in a nut-shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

… goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty!

in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me:

In what, my dear lord?

I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Well be with you, gentlemen!

Ay, so, God be wi’ ye; Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit That from her working all his visage wann’d, Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect, A broken voice, and …

I hear him coming: let’s withdraw, my lord. Exeunt King and Polonius.

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? To die: to sleep; No more;

… grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover’d country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?

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 pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.—Soft you now! The fair Ophelia!

I was the more deceived.

Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?

I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me:

Go to, I’ll no more on’t; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. Exit.

O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword; The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck’d the honey of his music vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;

That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

It shall be so:

Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.

Exeunt.

you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. ’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, yet you cannot play upon me.

My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.

Soft! now to my mother. O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom: Let me be cruel, not unnatural:

I will speak daggers to her, but use none;

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites; How in my words soever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent! Exit.

Thanks, dear my lord. Exit Polonius.

O, my offence 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: My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;

O, throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the other half. Good night: but go not to mine uncle’s bed;

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery, That aptly is put on.

I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so, To punish me with this and this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister. I will bestow him, and will answer well The death I gave him. So, again, good night.

I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins and worse remains behind. One word more, good lady.

I understand you not, my lord.

I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.

My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.

The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.

The king is a thing—

What dost you mean by this?

Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ the other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

… I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men, That, for a fantasy and trick of fame, Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain?

O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

Exit.

Well, God ’ild you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.

Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.

God be at your table!

Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you. Exit Horatio. O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs All from her father’s death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions.

First, her father slain: Next, your son gone; and he most violent author Of his own just remove: the people muddied, Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers, For good Polonius’ death; and we have done but greenly, In hugger-mugger to inter him:

What is the cause, Laertes, That thy rebellion looks so giant-like? Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:

There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,

That treason can but peep to what it would, Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes, Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude. Speak, man.

This nothing’s more than matter.

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Let me see. Takes the skull. Alas, poor Yorick!

I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy

: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols?

And smelt so? pah! Puts down the skull.

To what base uses we may return, Horatio!

Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as thus:

Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust;

the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:

Hear you, sir; What is the reason that you use me thus? I loved you ever: but it is no matter;

Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

Exit.

methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly, And praised be rashness for it, let us know, Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will—