| “Such was the very armour he had on/ When he the ambitious Norway combatted./ So frowned he once, when, in an angry parle,/ He smote the sledded Pollacks on the ice.” | Speaker: HoratioSpoken to: Marcellus and BarnardoMeaning: The ghost looks exactly like the King had in life, dressed in the armor he wore when he killed the king of Norway. This is important, because Horatio is a scholar and is less inclined to believe in ghosts. |
| ” . . . Our last king/ Whose image even but now appear’d to us . . . Of this post-haste and romage in the land.” | Speaker: HoratioSpoken to: Marcellus and BarnardoMeaning: A long time ago, King Hamlet and King Fortinbras had some type of fight. The winner of the fight would get all the territories held by the loser that were not the mainland. King Hamlet killed King Fortinbras. Now, many years later, Prince Fortinbras has gathered an army to retake the lost lands. |
| “A mote is to trouble the mind’s eye.” | Speaker: HoratioSpoken to: Marcellus and BarnardoMeaning: The ghost is a bad omen and should be taken seriously. He makes a parallel to the events that happened before Caesar’s murder. |
| “A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,/ The grave stood tenantless . . . “ | Speaker: HoratioSpoken to: Marcellus and BarnardoMeaning: The ghost is a bad omen and should be taken seriously. He makes a parallel to the events that happened before Caesar’s murder. |
| “Prologue to the omen coming on,/ Have heaven and earth together demonstrated/ Unto our climatures and countrymen.” | Speaker: HoratioSpoken to: Marcellus and BarnardoMeaning: The ghost is a bad omen and should be taken seriously. He makes a parallel to the events that happened before Caesar’s murder. |
| ” . . . That it us befitted/ To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom/ To be contracted in one brow of woe . . . “ | Speaker: King ClaudiusSpoken to: AllMeaning: He is lamenting briefly his brother’s death, but reminds his people that they need to move forward and defend their country, who is so often at war, especially with Prince Fortinbras pestering them to give back the lands King Hamlet took. |
| “Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,/ Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state . . . “ | Speaker: King ClaudiusSpoken to: AllMeaning: He is lamenting briefly his brother’s death, but reminds his people that they need to move forward and defend their country, who is so often at war, especially with Prince Fortinbras pestering them to give back the lands King Hamlet took. |
| ” . . . Young Fortinbras,/ Holding a weak supposal of our worth/ Or thinking by our late brother’s death/ Our state to be disjoint and out of frame . . . “ | Speaker: King ClaudiusSpoken to: AllMeaning: He is lamenting briefly his brother’s death, but reminds his people that they need to move forward and defend their country, who is so often at war, especially with Prince Fortinbras pestering them to give back the lands King Hamlet took. |
| “A little more than kin and less than kind.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: AsideMeaning: He doesn’t care for the strange new family ties. King Claudius is trying to convince him to be less morose and not to return to Wittenburg for school, but stay at the castle. |
| “How is it that the clouds still hang on you?” | Speaker: CladiusSpoken to: HamletMeaning: King Claudius is trying to convince Hamlet to be less morose and not to return to Wittenburg for school, but stay at the castle. |
| ‘Not so, my lord. I am too much in the sun.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: King ClaudiusMeaning: Hamlet is bitter about being so akin to a sun to Claudius. King Claudius is trying to convince Hamlet to be less morose and not to return to Wittenburg for school, but stay at the castle. |
| “‘Seems,’ madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems.'” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: GertrudeMeaning: He is not pretending to be sad, but genuinely is very upset. King Claudius and Queen Gertrude are trying to convince Hamlet to be less morose and not to return to Wittenburg for school, but stay at the castle. |
| “‘Tis unmanly grief.” | Speaker: King ClaudiusSpoken to: HamletMeaning: King Claudius is trying to convince Hamlet to be less morose about his father’s death and not to return to Wittenburg for school, but stay at the castle. |
| “Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: No OneMeaning: Hamlet wants to end his life, due to the betrayal he feels from his mother’s marriage. |
| “Frailty, the name is woman!” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: No OneMeaning: Hamlet wants to end his life, due to the betrayal he feels from his mother’s marriage. |
| ” . . . The funeral baked meats/ Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: Horatio came to pay respects at King Hamlet’s funeral. Hamlet expresses his anger at how quickly the marriage followed. |
| “If it assume my noble father’s person,/ I’ll speak to it, though Hell itself should gape/ And bid me hold my peace.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: Hamlet plans to go see the spirit. He wants the others to keep quiet about what they’ve seen and not talk of it. |
| “Let it be tenable in your silence still.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: Hamlet plans to go see the spirit. He wants the others to keep quiet about what they’ve seen and not talk of it. |
| “I will requite your loves.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: Hamlet plans to go see the spirit. He wants the others to keep quiet about what they’ve seen and not talk of it. |
| ” . . . Perhaps he loves you now,/ And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch/ The virtue of his will, but you must fear.” | Speaker: LaertesSpoken to: OpheliaMeaning: Laertes is advising Ophelia to watch herself with Hamlet, that even if he loves her now, he may change his mind or may not be able to love her in the future due to his duty to the royal family. Ophelia suggests he follows his own council, as well. |
| “Fear it, Ophelia. Fear it, my dear sister,/ And keep you in the rear of your affection,/ Out of the shot and danger of desire.” | Speaker: LaertesSpoken to: OpheliaMeaning: Laertes is advising Ophelia to watch herself with Hamlet, that even if he loves her now, he may change his mind or may not be able to love her in the future due to his duty to the royal family. Ophelia suggests he follows his own council, as well. |
| “I shall the effect of this good lesson keep/ As watchman to my heart.” | Speaker: OpheliaSpoken to: LaertesMeaning: Laertes is advising Ophelia to watch herself with Hamlet, that even if he loves her now, he may change his mind or may not be able to love her in the future due to his duty to the royal family. Ophelia suggests he follows his own council, as well. |
| ” . . . Give thy thoughts no tongue,/ Nor any unproportioned thought his act.” | Speaker: PoloniusSpoken to: LaertesMeaning: Polonius is giving his son lots of advice to follow while he’s gone. The speech exemplifies Polonius’ high regard for his own opinions, as well as how he enjoys to hear him himself speak. |
| “Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.” | Speaker: PoloniusSpoken to: LaertesMeaning: Polonius is giving his son lots of advice to follow while he’s gone. The speech exemplifies Polonius’ high regard for his own opinions, as well as how he enjoys to hear him himself speak. |
| “Neither a borrower nor a lender be . . . “ | Speaker: PoloniusSpoken to: LaertesMeaning: Polonius is giving his son lots of advice to follow while he’s gone. The speech exemplifies Polonius’ high regard for his own opinions, as well as how he enjoys to hear him himself speak. |
| “You do not understand yourself so clearly/ As it behooves my daughter and your honor.” | Speaker: PoloniusSpoken to: OpheliaMeaning: Polonius forbids Ophelia from seeing Hamlet anymore and accuses Ophelia of being foolish. |
| ” . . . The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out/ The triumph of his pledge.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: Hamlet explains the stupid tradition of his people where the new king gets drinks from all of the nobles, and then consummates his marriage with the Queen. He says this is why other countries think Denmark to be full of drunkards. One flaw can ruin an entire country’s reputation. |
| ” . . . The dram of evil/ Doth all the noble substance of a doubt/ To his own scandal.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: Hamlet explains the stupid tradition of his people where the new king gets drinks from all of the nobles, and then consummates his marriage with the Queen. He says this is why other countries think Denmark to be full of drunkards. One flaw can ruin an entire country’s reputation. |
| “I do not set my life in a pin’s fee . . . “ | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: The ghost is beckoning to Hamlet to come with it, but Horatio doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Hamlet does not value his life, so he doesn’t seen any danger. |
| “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” | Speaker: Ghost of HamletSpoken to: HamletMeaning: Claudius corrupted King Hamlet’s wife, then murdered him. King Hamlet wants Prince Hamlet to go out and kill the King Claudius, but to leave his mother to the heavens. |
| “But know, thought noble youth,/ The serpent that did sting thy father’s life/ Now wears his crown.” | Speaker: Ghost of HamletSpoken to: HamletMeaning: Claudius corrupted King Hamlet’s wife, then murdered him. King Hamlet wants Prince Hamlet to go out and kill the King Claudius, but to leave his mother to the heavens. |
| “If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.” | Speaker: Ghost of HamletSpoken to: HamletMeaning: Claudius corrupted King Hamlet’s wife, then murdered him. King Hamlet wants Prince Hamlet to go out and kill the King Claudius, but to leave his mother to the heavens. |
| “And now, good friends,/ As you are friends, scholars and soldiers,/ Give me one poor request . . ./ Never make known what you have seen tonight.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: Horatio and MarcellusMeaning: Hamlet wants the two to swear to never speak of what happened that night to anyone. |
| “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/ Then are dreamt of in your philosophy.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: Horatio and MarcellusMeaning: Hamlet knows there are things at work here bigger than he or the others. He tells the men he will be acting bizarrely, but that they should give no indication that they know why. |
| “O that this too sullied flesh would melt/ Thaw and resolve itself into a dew” | Hamlet |
| “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”- | Marcellus |
| “A little more than kin, and less than kind” | Hamlet |
| “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” | The Ghost |
| “That it should come to this!” | Hamlet |
| “Frailty, thy name is woman!” | Hamlet |
| “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” | Polonius |
| “This above all: to thine own self be true.” | Polonius |
| “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” | Polonius |
| “To be, or not to be: that is the question.” | Hamlet |
| “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” | Gertrude |
| “alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back one thousand times. And now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!”(V,1, 172) | Speaker: HamletMeaning: Hamlet is disgusted and horrified at how one of the court jesters remains (Skull) is just nothing but bone as he is disgusted about how disrespectful the corpses are being treated. |
| “Sweets to the sweet”(V,1, 230) | Speaker: QueenMeaning; an offering to the dead usually items. |
| “But i am very sorry, good horatio,that to laretes i fought myself; For by the image of my cause i see the portrait of his.”(V,2, 81) | speaker: HamletMeaning: hamlet feels bad for being mean and loosing himself to his self hatred. |
| “If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not now, yet it will come. readiness”(V,2, 212) | Speaker: hamletmeaning: death is always appearing in life and not to forget it. if it comes early in life it will not visit later, if it visits later in life it will invading it. |
| “Now cracks a noble heart. good night, sweet prince, and flights of angles sing thee to thy resting place” (5,2,374) | Speaker: horatiomeaning: horatio is giving words of remembrance hamlet. saying that he was a great player along with others. |
| “Mad as the sea and wind when both contend which is the mightier.” | Queen |
| “But, like the owner of a foul disease, to keep it from divulging, let it feed even on the pith of life.” | King |
| “He weeps for what is done” | Queen |
| “But we must with all our majesty and skill both countenance and excuse.” | King |
| “Take you me for a sponge, my lord?” | Ros./Guild |
| “Diseases desperate grown by desperate appliance are relieved or not at all.” | King |
| “Your worm is your only emperor for diet.” | Hamlet |
| “For like the hectic in my blood he rages, and thou must cure me” | King |
| “Tell him that by his license Fortinbras craves the conveyance of a promised march over his kingdom.” | Fortinbras |
| “We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name” | Captain |
| “Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats will not debate the question of this straw.” | Hamlet |
| “What is a man if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed?” | Hamlet |
| “Her speech is nothing, yet the unshaped use of it doth move the hearers to collection” | Gentleman |
| “Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.” | Horatio |
| “So full of artless jealousy is guilt, it spills itself in fearing to be spilt” | Queen |
| “Lord, we know what we are but know not what we may be” | Ophelia |
| “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions” | King |
| “O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!” | Queen |
| “That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard” | Laertes |
| “There’s such divinity doth hedge a king that treason can but peep to what it would.” | King |
| “To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand” | Laertes |
| “This nothing’s more than matter.” | Laertes |
| “And of all Christians’ souls, I pray God. God be wi’ you” | Ophelia |
| “And where th’ offense is, let the great ax fall” | King |
| “That, as the star moves but in his sphere, I could not but by her” | King |
| “Is the great love the general gender bear him, who, dipping all his faults in their affection” | King |
| “That I shall live and tell him to his teeth ‘Thus didst thou.'” | Laertes |
| “But even his mother shall uncharge the practice and call it accident” | King |
| “That we would do we should do when we would; for this ‘would’ changes” | King |
| “To cut his throat i’ th’ church” | Laertes |
| “Revenge should have no bounds” | King |
| “He, being remiss, most generous” | King |
| “I’ll touch my point with this contagion, that, if I gall his slightly, it may be death” | Laertes |
| “I’ll have prepared him a chalice for the nonce” | King |
| “There is a willow grows askant the brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream” | Queen |
| “Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia” | Laertes |
| To be, or not to be, that is the question: 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 to himself |
| When he himself might his guietus make with a bare bodkin? | Hamlet to himself |
| But that the dread of something after death the undiscover’d country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we now not of? | Hamlet to himself |
| Thus conscience does make cowards of us all | Hamlet to himself |
| Get thee to a nunnery | Hamlet to Ophelia |
| O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! The courtier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword, the expectancy and rose of the fair state, the glass of fashion and the mould of form | Ophelia talking about Hamlet |
| It shall do well. But yet do I believe the origin and commencement of his grief sprung from neglected love | Polonius talking to the Claudius about Hamlet |
| To England send him; or confine him where your wisdom best shall think | Polonius talking to the Claudius about Hamlet |
| Madness in great ones must not go unwatch’d go | Claudius talking to Polonius about Hamlet |
| Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. | Hamlet talking to the three players |
| Yet, though I distrust, discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must; for women’s fear and love hold quantity, in neither aught, or in extremity. Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know; and as mu love is sized, my fear is so. | P. Queen talking to P. King |
| In second husband let me be accurst! None wed the second but who killed the first | P. Queen talking to P. King |
| A second time I kill my husband dead when second husband kisses my in bed. | P. Queen talking to P. King |
| What to ourselves in passion we propose, the passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy their own enactures with themselves destroy. Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. | P. King talking to P. Queen |
| But, orderly to end where I begun, our wills and fates do so contrary run that our devices still are overthrown; our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. So think thou wilt no second husband wed; but die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead. | P. King talking to P. Queen |
| Meet what I would have well, and it destroy, both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, if, once a widow, ever I be wife! | P. Queen talking to P. King |
| The lady doth protest too much, methinks | Gertrude talking to Hamlet about P. Queen |
| The mousetrap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the Duke’s name; his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. ’tis a knavish piece of work; but what o’ that? Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. | Hamlet talking to Claudius |
| You would play upon me. You would seem to know my stops. You would pluck out the heart of my mystery. You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass. And there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak | Hamlet talking to Guildenstern |
| I will speak daggers to her but use none. | Hamlet talking to Polonius about Gertrude |
| Therefore prepare you.I your commission will forthwith dispatch,And he to England shall along with you.The terms of our estate may not endure | Claudius talking to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz about Hamlet |
| Behind the arras I’ll convey myselfTo hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home. | Polonius |
| Oh, my offence is rank. It smells to heaven.It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘t,A brother’s murder. Pray can I not.Though inclination be as sharp as will,My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, | Claudius |
| But in our circumstance and course of thought’Tis heavy with him. And am I then revengedTo take him in the purging of his soulWhen he is fit and seasoned for his passage? | Hamlet talking about Claudius |
| My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.Words without thoughts never to heaven go. | Claudius |
| Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger. | Hamlet talking to Gertrude |
| Look here upon this picture and on this,The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.See, what a grace was seated on this brow? | Hamlet talking to Gertrude about Claudius |
| Ha, have you eyes?You cannot call it love, for at your ageThe heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble,And waits upon the judgment. And what judgmentWould step from this to this? | Hamlet talking to Gertrude about Claudius |
| Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,And there I see such black and grainèd spotsAs will not leave their tinct. | Gertrude talking to Hamlet |
| This visitationIs but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.But look, amazement on thy mother sits.O, step between her and her fighting soul. | Ghost |
| Alas, how is ‘t with you,That you do bend your eye on vacancyAnd with th’ incorporal air do hold discourse? | Gertrude talking to Hamlet |
| Refrain tonight,And that shall lend a kind of easinessTo the next abstinence, the next more easy.For use almost can change the stamp of nature,And either rein the devil or throw him outWith wondrous potency. | Hamlet talking to Gertrude |
| I must be cruel, only to be kind | Hamlet talking to Gertrude |
| I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room. | Hamlet talking to Gertrude about Polonius |
| “He raised a sigh so piteous and profound as it did seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being” | Ophelia to Polonius about Hamlet |
| “More grief to hide than the to utter love” | Polonius to Ophelia about Hamlet |
| “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love” | Polonius reading a letter from Hamlet to Ophelia |
| “Though this be madness, yet there is a method in’t-“ | Polonius about Hamlet |
| “You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal-except my life, except my life, except my life.” | Hamlet |
| “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” | Hamlet |
| “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?” | Hamlet |
| “I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw” | Hamlet |
| “Our sometime sister, now our Queen” | Claudius in beginning speech |
| “A little more than kin, and less than kind.” | Hamlet in aside while with Claudius |
| “Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not “seems” | Hamlet to Gertrude |
| “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.” | Hamlet in his soliloquy about suicide |
| “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world.” | Hamlet in his soliloquy about suicide |
| “Frailty, thy name is woman!” | Hamlet in his soliloquy about suicide |
| “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” | Hamlet in his soliloquy about suicide |
| “Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meatsDid coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.” | Hamlet to horatio |
| “A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.” | Horatio to Hamlet |
| “I’ll speak to it though Hell itself should gapeAnd bid me hold my peace” | Hamlet to Horatio, bernardo and marcellus |
| “For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favours,Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood;A violet in the youth of primy nature,Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,The perfume and suppliance of a minute —No more.” | Laertes to Ophelia about Hamlet’s love |
| “Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads.And recks not his own rede.” | Ophelia to Laertes |
| “Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar” | Polonius to Laertes |
| “Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.” | Polonius to Laertes |
| “Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;For the apparel oft proclaims the man.” | Polonius to Laertes |
| “Neither a borrower nor a lender be:For loan oft loses both itself and friend.” | Polonius to Laertes |
| “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 |
| “But to my mind, — though I am native hereAnd to the manner born, — it is a customMore honour’d in the breach than the observance.” | Hamlet to Horatio before ghost |
| “Why, what should be the fear?I do not set my life at a pin’s fee,And for my soul, what can it do to that,Being a thing immortal as itself?” | Hamlet to Horatio when ghost appears |
| “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” | Marcellus to Horatio |
| “My hour is almost comeWhen I to sulphrous and tormenting flamesMust render up myself.” | ghost to Hamlet |
| “The serpent that did sting thy father’s lifeNow wears his crown.” | ghost to Hamlet |
| “Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin.” | ghost to Hamlet |
| “O horrible, O horrible, most horrible” | ghost to Hamlet |
| “And each particular hair to stand on end,Like quills upon the fretful porpentine” | ghost to Hamlet |
| “O most pernicious woman!O, villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!My tables, — meet it is I set it down,That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain” | hamlet to himself after ghost leaves |
| “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” | Hamlet to Horatio |
| “How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself —As I perchance hereafter shall think meetTo put an antic disposition on” | Hamlet to Marcellus and Horatio |
| “The time is out of joint; O cursed spite,That ever I was born to set it right!” | Hamlet to Marcellus and Horatio |
Full Hamlet Quote Test
July 1, 2019