hamlet quotes

Appearance vs reality

Polonius’ advice to laertes (act 1, scene 3)

‘This above all: to thine own self be true’

Hamlet addressing his mother (act 1, scene 2)

‘Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems”

Lady Gertrude about a character in a play (act 3, scene 2)

‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’

Order and disorder

Marcellus to hamlet about the ghost (act 1, scene 4)

‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’

Gertrude to hamlet about Claudius (act 1, scene 5)

‘O, speak to me no more; these words like daggers enter in mine ears. No more, sweet Hamlet’

Mortality and decay

Hamlets soliloquy (act 3, scene 1)

‘To be or not to be, that is the question’

Horatio on hamlets death (act 5, scene 2)

‘Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest’

Sex and love

Hamlet on his frustration with women (act 1, scene 2)

‘Frailty, thy name is woman!’

Revenge

Polonius on hamlets madness (act 2, scene 1)

‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t’