| O that this too too sallied flesh would melt… | Hamlet soliloquy (wishes that tainted/incestuous blood of royal family would be gone) |
| Frailty, thy name is woman! | Hamlet soliloquy (to Gertrude – believes all women are weak because angry at his mother) |
| Foul deeds will rise, / Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes | Hamlet to himself (anticipating ghost, bad deeds will be exposed) |
| Do not as some ungracious pastors do, / Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, / Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads | Ophelia to Laertes (do not be a hypocrite, do as you preach, don’t take the shortcut to heaven while you tell others to take the harder route) |
| Neither a borrower nor a lender be | Polonius to Laertes (don’t borrow or lend because it tends to ruin friendships) |
| 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 to Laertes (be true to yourself) |
| You speak like a green girl | Polonius to Ophelia (you are so fresh/innocent/naive) |
| Giving more light than heat | Polonius to Ophelia (Hamlet may be exaggerating his love for her, not much of his passion is true love) |
| … it is a custom / More honored in the breach than the observance | Hamlet to Horatio (partying is a tradition, but would prefer to ignore than to observe) |
| And for my soul, what can it do to that. / Being a thing immortal as itself? | Hamlet to Horatio (what can the ghost do to harm me, as it is immortal?) |
| Something is rotten in the state of Denmark | Marcellus to Horatio (foreshadowing bad things to happen) |
| Murder most foul | Ghost to Hamlet (terrible murder) |
| there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy | Hamlet to Horatio (there are things beyond what you can perceive) |
| As I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on | Hamlet to Horatio (I think I will act a bit crazy later on) |
| The time is out of joint. O cursed spite That ever I was born to set it right! | Hamlet to Horatio (So much is messed up these days. Curse that it is up to me to fix everything!) |
| Brevity is the soul of wit | Polonius to Claudius and Gertrude (those wise can explain simply) |
| More matter, with less art | Gertrude to Polonius (get to the point) |
| Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t | Polonius to Hamlet (There is a madness/strategy to his madness) |
| …there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so | Hamlet to Rosencrantz (nothing is either good or bad. It depends on our opinions of it) |
| What a piece of work is a man! | Hamlet to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz (men are so complicated and deceiving!) |
| I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southernly / I know a hawk from a handsaw. | Hamlet to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz (I am only mad sometimes. Otherwise, I know what’s what.) |
| What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba / That he should weep for her? | Hamlet to play (Why pity Hecuba?) |
| … the devil hath power / T’assume a pleasing shape… | Hamlet soliloquy (the ghost may well be a devil) |
| The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King | Hamlet soliloquy (I’ll catch the king’s guilt in the play) |
| To be, or not to be, that is the question | Hamlet soliloquy (should I or should I not?) |
| The glass of fashion and the mould of form, / The observed of all observers… | Ophelia to Hamlet (Hamlet used to be the beloved of the country) |
| It out-Herods Herod | Hamlet to play (It’s worse than even King Herod) |
| Suit the action to the word, the word to the action | Hamlet to play (act well) |
| The lady doth protest too much, methinks | Gertrude to Hamlet (the lady thinks too much on her stance) |
| O shame, where is thy blush? | Hamlet to Gertrude (Where is your shame?) |
| A king of shreds and patches! | Hamlet to Gertrude (Claudius is unworthy) |
| …tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petar… | Hamlet to Gertrude (It’s natural for the schemer to get caught/hurt in his schemes) |
| How all occasions do inform against me… | Hamlet soliloquy (everything acts against me) |
| There’s such divinity doth hedge a king | Claudius to Laertes (the king is protected by god) |
| To cut his throat i’ th’ church | Laertes to Claudius (on Hamlet, killing Hamlet in church) |
| Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, / And therefore I forbid my tears… | Laertes to Ophelia (You’ve had too much water, Ophelia, so I won’t cry) |
| Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio! | Hamlet to Horatio (I knew the court jester) |
| Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay | Hamlet to Horatio (even the mighty face death) |
| Sweets to the sweet! | Gertrude to Ophelia (Ophelia was a sweet girl) |
| I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers / Could not with all their quantity of love / Make up my sum | Hamlet to Laertes (I loved Ophelia more than anyone) |
| Let Hercules himself do what he may, / The cat will mew, and the dog will have his day. | Hamlet to all (not even Hercules’ strength can keep things from going back to what they were) |
| There’s a divinity that shapes our ends | Hamlet to Horatio (fate determines everything) |
| …there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow | Hamlet to Horatio (fate controls everything, even sparrows) |
| Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric. / I am justly killed with mine own treachery. | Laertes to Osric (I am caught in my own trap / I brought my own end) |
| That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. | Ambassador to all (as it says) |
| Let four captains / Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage… | Fortinbras to Horatio (let soldiers honor Hamlet) |
Hamlet Famous Lines
September 12, 2019