All Quotes

"So long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. Oh heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

"Claudius: What do you call the play? Hamlet: “The Mouse-trap.” 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 of that? Your Majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the gall’d jade winch, our withers are unwrung."

"’A poisons him i’ th’ garden for his estate. His name’s Gonzago, the story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife."

"Give me some light. Away!"

"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; 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. '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."

"Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? Polonius: By th' Mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale. Polonius: Very like a whale."

"Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business, as the day Would quake to look on."

"Let me be cruel, not unnatural; I will speak daggers to her, but use none."

"O! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven."

"What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood, — Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow?"

"Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; And now I'll do 't: and so he goes to heaven; And so am I reveng'd."

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

"Hamlet: How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! Polonius: Oh, I am slain!"

"Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better."

"Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty."

"I must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins and worse remains behind."

"Rosencrantz: I understand you not, my lord. Hamlet: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. Rosencrantz: My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king. Hamlet: The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing — Guildenstern: A thing, my lord? Hamlet: Of nothing."

"Hamlet: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. 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."

"Claudius: Where is Polonius? Hamlet: In heaven; send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby."

"How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unused. Now whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th' event - A thought which, quartered, hath but part wisdom And ever three parts coward - I do not know Why yet I live to say "This thing's to do," Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do't."

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

"We know what we are, but know not what we may be."

"Good-night, ladies; good-night, sweet ladies; good-night, good-night."

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

"I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come; It warms the very sickness in my heart, That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, 'Thus diest thou.'"

"There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes; As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element: but long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death."

"Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears."

"Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that."

"Lay her i' the earth: And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring!"

"This is I, Hamlet the Dane!"

"I lov'd Ophelia: forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum."

"Hear you sir; What is the reason that you use me thus? I lov'd you ever: but it is no matter. Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew, and dog will have his day."

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."

"That's two of his weapons: but, well."

"We defy augury; there's 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."

"O, I die, Horatio; The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England; But I do prophesy the election lights On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice; So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence."

"If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story."

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

"The sight is dismal; And our affairs from England come too late: The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd, That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead: Where should we have our thanks?"

"Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage."

"Go, bid the soldiers shoot."

"First Witch: When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Second Witch: When the hurly-burly's done, When the battle's lost and won. Third Witch: That will be ere the set of sun. First Witch: Where's the place? Second Witch: Upon the heath Third Witch:There to meet with Macbeth. First Witch: I come, Graymalkin! Second Witch: Paddock calls. Third Witch: Anon."

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair; Hover through the fog and filthy air."

"The merciless Macdonwald (Worthy to be a rebel, — for, to that, The multiplying villainies of nature Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied; And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, Showed like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak: For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name) Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel, Which smoked with bloody execution, Like valour's minion, Carv'd out his passage."

"A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap, And munched, and munched, and munched: Give me, quoth I: Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries."

"Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his pent-house lid."

"So foul and fair a day I have not seen."

"First Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! Second Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! Third Witch: All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter."

"If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow, and which will not, Speak."