Hamlet Quotes

"Who's there?"

Francisco to Barnardo (Act 1, Scene 1)

"Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee, speak."

Horatio to King's Ghost (Act 1, Scene 1)

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

Marcellus to Horatio (Act 1, Scene 4)

"A little more than kin and less than kind."

Hamlet to Claudius (aside) (Act 1, Scene 2)

"I am too much in the sun."

Hamlet to himself (Act 1, Scene 2)

"O that this too too solid flesh would melt."

Hamlet to himself (Act 1, Scene 2)

"Frailty, thy name is woman!"

Hamlet to himself (Act 1, Scene 2)

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be."

Polonius to Laertes (Act 1, Scene 3)

"Give thy thoughts no tongue."

Polonius to Laertes (Act 1, Scene 3)

"The serpent that did sting thy father's life / Now wears his crown."

Ghost to Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5)

"Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder."

Ghost to Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5)

"Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive / Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven."

Ghost to Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5)

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Hamlet to Horatio (Act 1, Scene 5)

"The time is out of joint! O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right!"

Hamlet to himself (Act 1, Scene 5)

"Brevity is the soul of wit."

Polonius to King and Queen (Act 2, Scene 2)

"More matter with less art."

Gertrude to Polonius (Act 2, Scene 2)

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."

Polonius to himself (aside) (Act 2, Scene 2)

"What a piece of work is a man!"

Hamlet to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz (Act 2, Scene 2)

"The play's the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

Hamlet to himself (Act 2, Scene 2)

"To be or not to be

that is the question."

"Get thee to a nunnery."

Hamlet to Ophelia (Act 3, Scene 1)

"Madness in great ones must not unwatched go."

Claudius to Polonius (Act 3, Scene 1)

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Gertrude to Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 2)

"Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me."

Hamlet to Guildenstern (Act 3, Scene 2)

"I will speak daggers to her, but use none."

Hamlet to himself (Act 3, Scene 2)

"O my offense is rank, it smells to heaven."

Claudius to himself (soliloquy) (Act 3, Scene 3)

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. / Words without thoughts never to heaven go."

Claudius to himself (aside) (Act 3, Scene 3)

"O shame, where is the blush!"

Hamlet to Gertrude (Act 3, Scene 4)

"Look here upon this picture and on this, / The counterfeit presentment of two brothers."

Hamlet to Gertrude (Act 3, Scene 4)

"I must be cruel only to be kind."

Hamlet to Gertrude (Act 3, Scene 4)

"This counselor / Is now most still, most secret, and most grave, / Who was in life a foolish, prating knave."

Hamlet to Gertrude (Act 3, Scene 4)

"How all occasions do inform against me / And spur my dull revenge."

Hamlet to himself (soliloquy) (Act 4, Scene 4)

"O, from this time forth / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"

Hamlet to himself (Act 4, Scene 4)

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, / But in battalions."

Claudius to Gertrude (Act 4, Scene 7)

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance, / Pray you, love, remember."

Ophelia to Laertes (Act 4, Scene 5)

"Too much water hast thou, poor Ophelia."

Laertes to Gertrude (Act 4, Scene 7)

"Sweets to the sweet, farewell."

Gertrude to dead Ophelia (Act 4, Scene 7)

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow / Of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."

Hamlet to Horatio (Act 5, Scene 1)

"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, / Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."

Hamlet to Horatio (Act 5, Scene 1)

"Let Hercules himself do what he may, / The cat will mew, and the dog will have his day."

Hamlet to Gertrude (Act 5, Scene 1)

"The readiness is all."

Hamlet to Horatio (Act 5, Scene 2)

"The king, the king's to blame."

Laertes to Hamlet (Act 5, Scene 2)

"I am justly killed with my own treachery."

Laertes to Osric (Act 5, Scene 2)

"The drink, the drink! I am poisoned."

Gertrude to Hamlet (Act 5, Scene 2)

"Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

Horatio to dead Hamlet (Act 5, Scene 2)

"Let four captains / Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage."

Horatio to the soldiers (Act 5, Scene 2)