Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from Hamlet:
“Doubt thou the stars are fire;Doubt that the sun doth move;Doubt truth to be a liar;But never doubt I love.”
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
“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.”
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe 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; and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause: there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,The insolence of office and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscover'd country from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the willAnd makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pith and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisonsBe all my sins remember'd!”
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
“To die, - To sleep, - To sleep!Perchance to dream: - ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause: there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;”
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”
“Listen to many, speak to a few.”
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain; at least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark.”
“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
“Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. ”
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!”
“God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another.”
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
“Sweets to the sweet, farewell! I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not have strewed thy grave.”
“Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”
“I must be cruel only to be kind;Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”
“If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.”
“What 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?”
“Words, words, words.”
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
“So full of artless jealousy is guilt,It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”
“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." Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.”
“The rest, is silence.”
“To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”
“I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
“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?”
“Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep.”
