Quotessence
Home / Books / Hamlet

Hamlet

Book by William Shakespeare · 14 quotes · Hamlet, William Shakespeare, Death

Filter quotes by topic

Hamlet Quotes

“Then, if he says he loves you, It fits your wisdom so far to believe it As he in his particular act and place May give his saying deed; which is no further Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal. Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain If with too credent ear you list his songs, Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open To his master importunity. Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister. And keep you in the rear of your affection, Out of the shot and danger of desire. The chariest maid is prodigal enough If she unmask her beauty to the moon. Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes. The canker galls the infants of the spring Too oft before their buttons be disclosed; And in the morn and liquid dew of youth Contagious blastments are more imminent. Be wary then. Best safety lies in fear. Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.”

“She speaks much of her father: says she hears There's tricks i'th'world, and hems, and beats her heart, Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing. Yet the unshaped use of it doth move The hearers to collection. They aim at it, And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts, Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them, Indeed, would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.”

“To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelia. Doubt thou the stars are fire. Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar. But never doubt I love. O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my groans. But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, Hamlet.”

“There is a willow grows askant the brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. Therewith fantastic garlands did she make Of crowflowers, 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 pendant boughs her crownet 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 that I know love is begun by time, And that I see, in passages of proof, Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it, And nothing is at a like goodness still; For goodness, growing to a pleurisy, Dies in his own too-much. That we would do We should do when we would. For this 'would' changes, And hath abatements and delays as many As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents. And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh, That hurts by easing.”