"To be, or not to be: that is the question". Hamlet quote (Act III, Sc. I).
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry". Hamlet quote Act I, Sc. III).
"This above all: to thine own self be true" Hamlet quote (Act I, Sc. III).
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." Hamlet quote (Act II, Scene II).
"That it should come to this!". Hamlet quote (Act I, Scene II).
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" Hamlet quote (Act II, Sc. II).
"What a piece of work is 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! " Hamlet quote (Act II, Sc. II).
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks". Hamlet ( Quote Act III, Sc. II).
"In my mind's eye". Hamlet quotation (Quote Act I, Scene II).
"A little more than kin, and less than kind". (Hamlet Quote Act I, Scene II).
"The play 's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king". Hamlet Quote (Act II, Scene II).
"And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man". (Hamlet Quote Act I, Scene III)."
"This is the very ecstasy of love". - ( Hamlet Quote Act II, Sc I).
"Brevity is the soul of wit". - Hamlet Quote (Act II, Scene II).
"Doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love". Hamlet Quote (Act II, Sc. II).
"Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind". - (Hamlet Quote Act III, Scene I).
"Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?" Hamlet Quote (Act III, Sc. II).
"I will speak daggers to her, but use none". - (Hamlet Quote Act III, Sc. II).
"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions". - (Hamlet Quote Act IV, Scene V).
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.
— After the Ghost disappears for the second time, Horatio observes that it was startled by the rooster crowing at dawn.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill . . . .
—The bitterly cold night of the Ghost ends with a metaphorical dash of warm color.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
The memory be green and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
— The king acknowledges that he is aware that the memory of the death of his brother, King Hamlet, is still fresh, and that it's appropriate for himself ("us") and the entire kingdom to be in a state of deep grief, but then goes on to say that he is taking the wisest course in getting on with business of taking care of his people and his country ("ourselves").
With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
— The king justifies his quick marriage to his brother's widow by saying that he and all of his countrymen both celebrate a marriage and grieve a death
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
— Punning, Hamlet says that the king is doubly "kin," as the king is both his uncle and his stepfather, but not "kind," that is, not his kind of person or one for whom he feels any real kinship.
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
— Trying to lift Hamlet's melancholy over his father's death, the queen tries to convince him that his father's death was not unexpected, as all that lives must die.
Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not "seems."
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
— Hamlet is differentiating between appearance and reality: he lists some of the usual outward rituals of bereavement, such as black clothing, noisy sighs, depressed behavior and tears. Hamlet implies that anyone can fake these outward signs of grief, but that what he feels is deeper.
To persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient
— The king criticizes Hamlet for persisting in his grief for his father.
— Hamlet begins his famous soliloquy bemoaning his father's death and his mother's swift remarriage after a lifetime of thinking his mother was totally devoted to his father.
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! —
— Hamlet continues torturing himself with the memories of his mother's wifely devotion, which seemed to increase with time, yet she married her brother-in-law within a month of her husband's death. Hamlet groups his mother with all women and calls her frail, which implies inability to withstand temptation.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
— Hamlet tells Horatio that the leftover funeral food also supplied the wedding (because the two events were so close together) and concludes by saying he would prefer meeting his most dreaded dead enemy than witness that hasty celebration.
'A was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
— Hamlet tells Horatio that he shall never again see someone equal to his father.
Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear,
— Horatio tells Hamlet to hold back his amazement and listen until Horatio can relate all the details of the ghost's appearances.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
— Laertes is warning his sister Ophelia to guard her virginity, as it is very easy to lose — just as some flowers succumb to the canker worm or contagious blights before they bloom.
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
Andrecks not his own rede.
— Ophelia warns her brother in return not to be like pastors who preach about the difficult path to heaven, while they themselves dally and do not take their own advice.
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;
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
— Polonius is giving unsolicited advice to his son Laertes who is leaving for France; take Polonius' advice with a grain of salt, as he is called a fool by other characters.
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.
— Polonius delivers more parting advice, admonishing his son to neither loan nor borrow, as he may lose both his friends and his money. Laertes is also advised not to be a phony, but genuine so others will find him sincere.
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows.
— Polonius imparts his advice to his daughter Ophelia next, warning her against Hamlet's advances, saying that sexual desire can overtake the soul and cause men to speak carelessly.
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
— Horatio is trying to talk Hamlet out of following his father's ghost, but Hamlet is fearless, saying that he sets almost no value on his own life and that he has no concern for his soul which cannot be damaged, as it is immortal, just like the apparition itself.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
— Marcellus and Horatio decide to follow Hamlet even though he has warned them both not to try to stop him; they are worried for the prince's safety when Marcellus exclaims that something is amiss in their country, as the appearance of the dead king's beckoning ghost implies.
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.
— The dead king's ghost tells Hamlet that he could horrify him with tales of purgatory, but that this information is not for the living.
I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf
— The ghost is surprised that Hamlet is catching on so quickly when he expected him to be like weeds along the bank of the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness in Hades.
But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
—The ghost tells Hamlet that true virtue (which he thought belonged to his queen) cannot be seduced.
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd,
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head
— His father's ghost tells Hamlet that he was murdered and sent to eternity without the benefit of the sacrament, unannointed, without extreme unction or spiritual preparation of any kind.
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.
— The ghosts says if Hamlet has the natural affection of a son he will seek revenge to remove lust and incest from the royal bed, but recommends that he not punish his mother, but leave her penalty to heaven and her own conscience.
Ay, thou poor Ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records
— Hamlet swears to himself that not only will he remember the ghost's words, but he will erase former memories and think of nothing else.
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
— Hamlet curses his uncle and his smiles (which give the impression that nothing is wrong). Hamlet then tells himself it is appropriate to write about his uncle's villainous smiles in tables (tablets), not just the table of his mind.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
— Hamlet tells Horatio that science (natural philosophy) does not explain, nor come close to recounting all phenomena.
The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
— Hamlet, speaking to Horatio, Marcellus and himself, acknowledges the wrongness of the time and curses the spite of fate itself that he was born to bring justice.
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
— Polonius has been advising Reynaldo in devious conversational strategies to find out what Laertes is up to while he is out of the country. Polonius concludes his directions by telling Reynaldo that any lies he may tell about Laertes will only enhance the likelihood that others will reveal truths about Laertes, assuring him that wise and powerful men like himself use these roundabout tactics.
This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings
— Ophelia has come to her father to relate Hamlet's strange behavior and Polonius attributes the strangeness to the madness of love and not to disillusionment with women in general because of his mother's hasty marriage.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.
— Polonius has rushed to the king's side to attribute Hamlet's strange behavior to the madness induced by love. Polonius says brevity is the soul of eloquence even though Polonius himself is never brief in his pronunciations.
More matter, with less art.
— The queen urges Polonius to come to the point he is trying to make about the source of Hamlet's madness.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true
— Polonius swears to the queen he will use no art although he immediately begins to play with his own words instead of getting to the point.
Though this be madness, yet there is method
in 't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
— Polonius has been talking with Hamlet and makes this comment about the underlying rationality of his madness in an aside that Hamlet cannot hear, similar to a note to oneself.
These tedious old fools!
— As soon as Polonius leaves, Hamlet calls him a fool and groups him with other old fools he has known.
Rosencranz: As the indifferent children of the earth.
Guildenstern: Happy, in that we are not over-happy, on
Fortune's cap we are not the very button.
— Hamlet asks how Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been and Rosencrantz replies for them both saying they have been so-so. Then Guildenstern also answers Hamlet saying he is glad that he and Rosencrantz are not exuberant.
Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me
it is a prison.
— Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have disagreed with Hamlet who has just called Denmark a prison, when Hamlet makes this enigmatic declaration that thinking itself determines the goodness or badness of circumstances.
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.
— Hamlet says that he could fool himself into thinking that infinite space existed in a nutshell where he ruled as king were it not for his bad dreams.
I have of late—but wherefore
I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of
exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my
disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to
me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy,
the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament,
thismajestical roof fretted with golden fire, why,
it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties,
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—no, nor woman neither, though by
your smiling you seem to say so.
— Hamlet has just succeeded in extracting the truth from Guildenstern that both he and Rosencrantz have been sent for by the crown. Hamlet immediately confesses to an excess of despondency yet maintains its source mystifies him, although the audience is already privy to his issues with his mother and uncle. Hamlet continues to characterize his own state of mind, saying that he has lost his sense of humor, that he no longer exercises, that the earth and sky have lost their wonder, and that man himself, who he lauds excessively, and women too have lost their charm.