Hamlet, a play by William Shakespeare, follows Prince Hamlet’s descent into madness.
Hamlet struggles with the death of his father, the King of Denmark, and his mother’s swift remarriage to his uncle.
Fueled by a ghostly encounter with his murdered father and the revelation of his uncle’s sinister plot, Hamlet embarks on a dangerous path of revenge.
His quest takes a toll on his relationships, sanity, and life – resulting in tragic losses and an enduring tale of existential struggle, vengeance, and the profound complexity of human nature.
Hamlet Quotes With Page Numbers Act 1
“A little more than kin, a little less than kind.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 1, Scene 2, Page 9
“But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 1, Scene 2, Page 11
“It is not, nor it cannot, come to good,
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 1, Scene 2, Page 11
“He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 1, Scene 2, Page 12
“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.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Lord Polonius), Act 1, Scene 3, Page 17
“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man, And they in France of the best rank and station Are of a most select and generous chief in that.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Lord Polonius), Act 1, Scene 3, Page 17
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Marcellus), Act 1, Scene 4, Page 21
“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain; at least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet)), Act 1, Scene 5, Page 24
“Remember me.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Ghost), Act 1, Scene 2, Page 24
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 1, Scene 5, Page 27
Hamlet Act 2 Quotes And Page Numbers
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Lord Polonius), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 34
“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Lord Polonius), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 35
“Words, words, words.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 37
“To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 37
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Lord Polonius), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 38
“You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 38
“The Play’s the Thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 38
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 39
“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.”
Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 39
“I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 39
“What piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, 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?”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 41
“This goodly frame, 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, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. 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?”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 41
“I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 43
“The Devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 48
Quotes From Hamlet Act 3
“We are oft to blame in this, –
’tis too much proved, – that with devotion’s visage,
and pios action we do sugar o’er
the devil himself.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Lord Polonius), Act 3, Scene 1, Page 51
“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? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
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 know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d!”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 1, Page 52
“To die, – To sleep, – To sleep!
Perchance to dream: – ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 1, Page 52
“Conscience does make cowards of us all.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 1, Page 52
“Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause, there’s the respect, That makes calamity of so long life”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 5, Scene 1, Page 52
“I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all. Believe none of us.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 1, Page 53
“Get thee to a nunnery.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 1, Page 53
“God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 3, Page 54
“Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: King Claudius), Act 3, Scene 1, Page 55
“Give me that man that is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him in my heart’s core, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 2, Page 57
“The lady protests too much, methinks.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Queen Gertrude), Act 3, Scene 2, Page 62
“HAMLET:
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?GUILDENSTERN: My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET: I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN: Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET: I do beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN: I know no touch of it, my lord.
HAMLET: It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with our fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
GUILDENSTERN: But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill.
HAMLET: 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.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet and GUILDENSTERN), Act 2, Scene 2, Pages 66, 67
“Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius: By the 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.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet andPolonius), Act 3, Scene 2, Page 67
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: King Claudius), Act 3, Scene 2, Page 71
“I must be cruel only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 4, Page 76
Hamlet Act 4 Quotes
“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 god-like reason to fust in us unused.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 4, Scene 4, Page 84
“So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Queen Gertrude), Act 4, Scene 5, Page 86
“Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Ophelia), Act 4, Scene 5, Page 87
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: King Claudius), Act 4, Scene 5, Page 88
Hamlet Act 5 Quotes
“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 rims 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?”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 5, Scene 1, Page 105
“Sweets to the sweet, farewell! I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not have strewed thy grave.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Queen Gertrude), Act 5, Scene 2, Page 107
“Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 5, Scene 2, Page 110
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 5, Scene 2, Page 110
“Not a whit, 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.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 5, Scene 2, Page 116
“Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. ”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Horatio), Act 5, Scene 2, Page 121
“The rest is silence.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Hamlet), Act 5, Scene 2, Page 121
Macbeth Quotes With Page Numbers
What is Hamlet’s most famous quote?
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 1, Page 52
What Is Hamlet’s famous love quote?
“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Lord Polonius), Act 2, Scene 2, Page 35
What is the quote from Hamlet to be or not to be?
“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? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
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 know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d!”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 1, Page 52
What quotes show Hamlet’s grief for his father?
“Do not fore ver with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Character: Queen Gertrude), Act 1, Scene 2, Page 9
What is the best quote about death in Hamlet?
“Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.”
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Queen Gertrude), Act 1, Scene 2, Page 9
“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;”~William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Hamlet), Act 3, Scene 1, Page 52