Quotes from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)

William Shakespeare ·  320 pages

Rating: (607.2K votes)


“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, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“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, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)



“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“Listen to many, speak to a few.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain. ”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)



“This above all: to thine own self be true.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. ”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“Lord Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)



“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! 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?”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“I must be cruel only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)



“I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)


“I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)



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About the author

William Shakespeare
Born place: Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, The United Kingdom
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