Summary Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' quotes from the play and critics.

Theme Quotation Speaker &
act
Denmark “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” Marcellus act
1 scene 4
“Let not the royal bed of Denmark be / A couch for Ghost act 1
luxury and damned incest” scene 5
“Denmark’s a prison” Hamlet Act 2
scene 2
Action vs inaction “Who’s there?” (play’s opening line) Bernardo act 1
scene 1
“too sullied flesh would melt, /Thaw, and resolve Hamlet act 1
itself into a dew” scene 2 (first
soliloquy)
“The play’s the thing, / Wherein I’ll catch the Hamlet act 2
conscience of the king” scene 2
“To be, or not to be – that is the question” Hamlet Act 3
scene 1
“Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings Hamlet Act 3
and arrows of outrageous fortune” scene 1
“I will do’t… ill anoint my sword” Laertes Act 4
scene 7 – plot
to kill Hamlet
“readiness is all” Hamlet end of
play before
duel
Appearance vs “This above all – to thine own self be true” Polonius Act 1
reality scene 3
“By indirections find directions out” Polonius act 2
scene 1
“brevity is the soul of wit, / And tediousness the Polonius act 2
limbs and outward flourishes, / I will be brief” scene 2
““The play’s the thing, / Wherein I’ll catch the Hamlet Act 2
conscience of the king” scene 2
(murder of
“occulted guilt… unkennel itself” Gonzago)

Polonius “did enact Julius Caesar”.

“What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, / That he
should weep for her”
“loos [his] daughter” Polonius Act 2
Hide “behind an arras” scene 2
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; / Claudius act 3
Words without thoughts never to heaven go” scene 3
‘sponge’ to ‘soak up the King’s countenance’ Hamlet about
R&G act 4
scene 2
Gender/ “Why, she would hang on him / As if appetite has Hamlet act 1
relationships grown” scene 2 (first

, soliloquy)
“Frailty, thy name is woman!” Hamlet act 1
scene 2 (first
soliloquy)
“With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” Hamlet act 1
scene 2 (first
soliloquy)
“The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth Hamlet act 1
the marriage tables” scene 2 (after
first soliloquy)
“rebellious hell” – about Gertrude Hamlet act 3
“rank sweat of an enseamed bed, / Stew’d in scene 4 (closet
corruption” scene)
“Geth thee to a nunnery.” Hamlet act 3
“breeder of sinners” scene 1
“I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers / Could Gravediggers
not … make up my sum”.
Madness “Your noble son is mad” Polonius act 2
scene 2
This is the very ecstasy of love” Polonius Act 2
scene 2
“Lord Hamlet with his doublet all unbraced” Ophelia Act 2
“pale as his shirt” scene 1
“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance” Ophelia Act 4
scene 5
“I would give you some violets, but they withered
all when / my father died”
She is “pulled” “mermaid like” in the “weeping Gertrude
brook” (describing
Ophelia’s
death)
Kingship “So excellent a king, that was to this / Hyperion to a Hamlet act 1
satyr” scene 2 (first
soliloquy)
“The serpent that did sting thy father’s life / Now Ghost act 1
wears his crown” scene 5
“Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” Ghost act 1
scene 5
“O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!” Hamlet act 1
scene 5 (after
ghost scene)
“A king may go a progress through the guts of a Hamlet act 4
beggar” scene 3 (after
Polonius
death)
Death “too sullied flesh would melt, /Thaw, and resolve Hamlet act 1
itself into a dew” scene 2
“The funeral baked meats / Did coldly furnish forth Hamlet act 1
the marriage tables.” scene 2