Quotes from Hamlet
23 notable lines from William Shakespeare · c. 1600
To be, or not to be, that is the question.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Marcellus, Act I, scene iv Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
Hamlet, Act V, scene i (the graveyard) Brevity is the soul of wit.
Polonius, Hamlet The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Gertrude, Act III, scene ii 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.
Polonius, Act I, scene iii (advice to Laertes) Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
Polonius, Act I, scene iii (advice to Laertes) Frailty, thy name is woman!
Hamlet, Act I, scene ii (first soliloquy) There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet, Hamlet 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?
Hamlet, Act III, scene i Get thee to a nunnery.
Hamlet to Ophelia, Act III, scene i Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Horatio, over Hamlet's body, Act V, scene ii The rest is silence.
Hamlet's dying words, Act V, scene ii Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.
Polonius, Act II, scene ii Words, words, words.
Hamlet, Act II, scene ii (replying to Polonius's "What do you read, my lord?") When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.
Claudius, Act IV, scene v 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!
Hamlet, Act II, scene ii The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Hamlet, Act II, scene ii (closing his soliloquy) There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
Hamlet, Act II, scene ii O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Hamlet, Act I, scene ii (first soliloquy) Murder most foul, as in the best it is; but this most foul, strange and unnatural.
The Ghost, Act I, scene v We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Ophelia, Act IV, scene v (in her madness) Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
Gertrude, scattering flowers on Ophelia's grave, Act V, scene i