Important Hamlet Quotes

• To die, to sleep - To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub, For in this sleep of death what dreams may come.

  William Shakespeare

  Death, Dream, Halloween

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. 56

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• Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

  William Shakespeare

  Memorable, Disease And Death, Political

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 1, sc. 4, l. 90

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• 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 rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

  William Shakespeare

  Song, Imagination, Gorges

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 5, sc. 1, l. [201]

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• I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.

  William Shakespeare

  Brother, Hamlet And Ophelia, Tempest

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 5, sc. 1, l. [291]

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• More matter with less art.

  William Shakespeare

  Art, Hamlet And Ophelia, Matter

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. 95

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• The Play's the Thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Play, Acting

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [641]

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• To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life.

  Mark Twain

  Long, Hamlet And Ophelia, Speech

  1884 The Duke's version of Hamlet's soliloquy, combining elements of other speeches by Hamlet and pieces of Macbeth. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ch.21.

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• I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

  William Shakespeare

  Crazy, Wind, Mad

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [405]

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• 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.

  William Shakespeare

  Beauty, Moving, Angel

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• 'Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

  William Shakespeare

  Death, Patience, Hamlet And Ophelia

  11 Copy quote

• There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Positive, Happiness

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [259]

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• This above all; to thine own self be true.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Graduation

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 1, sc. 3, l. 58

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• Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

  William Shakespeare

  Language Words, Heaven, Hamlet And Ophelia

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 3, sc. 3, l. 97

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• When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

  William Shakespeare

  Sympathy, Sadness, Sad Life

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 4, sc. 5, l. [78]

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• The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

  William Shakespeare

  Women, Memorable, Important

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 3, sc. 2, l. [242]

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• O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

  William Shakespeare

  God, Despair, Use

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 129

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• Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears.

  William Shakespeare

  Water, Tears, Hamlet And Ophelia

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 4, sc. 7, l. 186

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• This is the very coinage of your brain: this bodiless creation ecstasy.

  William Shakespeare

  Thinking, Brain, Creation

  William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Alexander Pope, Richard Farmer, Samuel Johnson (1821). “The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare”, p.400

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• It is not, nor it cannot, come to good, But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

  William Shakespeare

  Heart, Hamlet And Ophelia, Tongue

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 158

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• This 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?

  William Shakespeare

  Moving, Angel, Men

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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

  William Shakespeare

  Hamlet And Ophelia, Polonius, Hamlet 2

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [221]

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• If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

  William Shakespeare

  Calumny Is, Ice, Snow

  William Shakespeare (1823). “The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: From the Text of Johnson, Stevens, and Reed; with Glossarial Notes, His Life, and a Critique on His Genius & Writings”, p.920

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• Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

  William Shakespeare

  Halloween, Power, Madness

  William Shakespeare (1996). “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Facing-pages Translation Into Contemporary English”, p.4, Lorenz Educational Publishers

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• This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o-erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.

  William Shakespeare

  Fire, Air, Space

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Men, Sea

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 4, sc. 2, l. [29]

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