Hamlet

Hamlet

by

William Shakespeare

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Hamlet makes teaching easy.

Hamlet Quotes

Read our modern English translation.
Need another quote?
Need analysis on another quote?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
Request it
Request it
Request analysis
Request analysis
Request analysis
Act 1, Scene 2 Quotes

Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not “seems.”

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Gertrude
Page Number: 1.2.79
Explanation and Analysis:

O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker)
Page Number: 1.2.133-134
Explanation and Analysis:

Frailty, thy name is woman!

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Gertrude
Page Number: 1.2.150
Explanation and Analysis:

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius, Gertrude, Horatio
Page Number: 1.2.187-188
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 3 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Polonius (speaker), Laertes
Page Number: 1.3.84-86
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 4 Quotes

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Related Characters: Marcellus (speaker), Hamlet, The Ghost, Horatio
Page Number: 1.4.100
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 5 Quotes

O, villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius
Page Number: 1.5.113
Explanation and Analysis:

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

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Horatio
Page Number: 1.5.187-188
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 2 Quotes

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.

Related Characters: Polonius (speaker)
Page Number: 2.2.97-99
Explanation and Analysis:

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 2.2.268-270
Explanation and Analysis:

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 2.2.273-275
Explanation and Analysis:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in
reason, how infinite in faculties, in form, in 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?

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 2.2.327-332
Explanation and Analysis:

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), First Player
Page Number: 2.2.586-587
Explanation and Analysis:

The play’s the thing,
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius
Page Number: 2.2.633-634
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 1 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 3.1.64-68
Explanation and Analysis:

Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me…

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Ophelia
Page Number: 3.1.131-134
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 2 Quotes

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery… ’Sblood, 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.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Page Number: 3.2.393-402
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 3 Quotes

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

Related Characters: Claudius (speaker)
Page Number: 3.3.102-103
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 3 Quotes

CLAUDIUS: What dost thou mean by this?

HAMLET: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Claudius (speaker), Polonius
Page Number: 4.3.33-35
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5, Scene 1 Quotes

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite jest… Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Horatio, Yorick
Related Symbols: Yorick’s Skull
Page Number: 5.1.190-198
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5, Scene 2 Quotes

We defy augury. There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.

Related Characters: Hamlet (speaker), Horatio
Page Number: 5.2.233-237
Explanation and Analysis:

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Related Characters: Horatio (speaker), Hamlet
Page Number: 5.2.397-398
Explanation and Analysis:
No matches.