| 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 in his soliloquy about whether to live or die. |
| But that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we now not of? | Hamlet in his “To be or not to be” soliloquy saying people decide not to kill themselves out of fear of the unknown in the afterlife. |
| Get thee to a nunnery. | Hamlet to Ophelia, making a comment about her virtue |
| 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 mold of form. | Ophelia to herself, upset over Hamlet having gone crazy. Worries about Hamlet, not herself. |
| Madness in great ones must not unwatched go. | Claudius to Polonius about keeping an eye on crazy Hamlet. The greater the man, the farther the fall into madness. |
| Give me that man that is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him in my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, as I do thee. | Hamlet to Horatio on what he loves about him, his rational nature. |
| The lady doth protest too much, methinks | Gertrude talking to Hamlet about the queen in the play overdoing it. The lines make Gertrude uncomfortable because they are too close to her own life. |
| Let me be cruel, not unnatural. I will speak daggers to her, but use none. | Hamlet to himself about how he will hurt his mother (Gertrude) with words but no physically harm her. |
| My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;Words without thoughts never to heaven go. | Claudius to himself realizing he can not get a true confession because though he is guilty, he is not truly sorry. |
| Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,And there I see such black and grainèd spotsAs will not leave their tinct. | Gertrude to Hamlet. She is examining her conscious and sees she has sins, has done wrongs. |
| I must be cruel only to be kind. This bad begins, and worse remains behind. | Hamlet talking to Gertrude. He must to bad things in order to make things good (right). The murder (Polonius) is only the beginning. He knows he’ll have to kill again. |
Hamlet Act III Quotes
September 12, 2019