Hamlet Key Quotes, Critics and Interpretations
Key Quotes
Francisco: ‘I am sick at heart’ [1.1]
Horatio: ‘What art thou that usurp’st this time of night’ -> thoughtful, logical approach than
giving in to fear or superstition – a rational response under pressure – emotional steadiness
Horatio: ‘This bodes some strange eruption to our state’ -> bad omen for Denmark, something is
not right [1.1]
Horatio: ‘young Fortinbras / Of unimproved mettle hot and full’ [1.1]
Hamlet: ‘O that this too too solid flesh would melt’ [1.2]
Hamlet: ‘How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world’ [1.2]
Hamlet: ‘frailty, thy name is / woman.’ [1.2]
Laertes [to Ophelia]: ‘weigh what loss your honour may sustain’ [1.3]
Polonius [to Ophelia]: ‘think yourself a baby’ [1.3]
Ophelia [in reply to Polonius forbidding her to see Hamlet]: ‘I shall obey, my lord’ [1.3]
Horatio [to Hamlet about why he should not follow the ghost]: ‘might deprive your sovereignty of
reason / And draw you into madness?’ [1.4]
Marcellus: ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ [1.4]
Ghost: ‘Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder’ [1.5]
Hamlet: ‘I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on’ [1.5]
Hamlet: ‘O cursed spite, / That I was ever born to set it right’ [1.5]
Ophelia: ‘stockings fouled, / Ungartered’ ‘with a look so piteous in purport / As if he had been
loosed out of hell’ [2.1]
Claudius: ‘gather’ ‘glean’ [2.2]
Gertrude: ‘His father’s death, and our o’erhasty marriage’ [2.2]
Polonius: ‘in her duty and obedience’ [2.2]
Polonius: ‘I’ll loose my daughter to him’ [2.2]
Polonius: ‘Though this be madness, yet there is / method in’t’ [2.2]
Hamlet [to R+G]: ‘Denmark’s a prison’ [2.2]
,Hamlet: ‘the / beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. And / yet to me, what is this
quintessence of dust?’ [2.2]
Hamlet: ‘Yet I, / A dull and muddy-mettled rascal’ ‘unpregnant of my cause’ [2.2]
Hamlet: ‘Bloody, bawdy villain, / Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless, / villain! / O
vengeance!’ [2.2]
Hamlet: ‘I, the son of a dear father murdered, / Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, /
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, / And fall a-cursing like a very drab, / A
stallion!’ [2.2]
Hamlet: ‘the play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King’ [2.2]
Claudius: ‘lawful espials’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘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?’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘To die, to sleep’ = ‘consummation’ - sleep as an extended metaphor of death as sleep
and a satisfactory conclusion, yet he fears ‘the dread of something after death’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘The fair Ophelia – Nymph' - beautiful, loves her deeply [3.1]
Hamlet to Ophelia: ‘are you honest?’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘Get thee to a nunnery, why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘We are arrant / knaves all, believe none of us’ [3.1]
Ophelia: ‘O help him, sweet heavens’ ‘O heavenly powers, restore him’ ‘O what a noble mind is
here o’erthrown’ [3.1]
Claudius: ‘Madness in great ones must not unwatched go’ [3.1]
Hamlet [to the players]: ‘[theatre’s purpose is to] hold as ’twere the mirror up to / nature [3.2]
Hamlet: ‘Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man / As e’er my conversation coped withal’ - most
honourable man he has ever met (the closest, most honest relationship in the play)
Hamlet: ‘[praises those who are] not a pipe for Fortune’s finger’ - praising Horatio for making
things happen rather than being a victim of fate/chance / personifies fate again (its power over
people like Hamlet or perhaps Ophelia)
Hamlet: ‘Give me that man / That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him / In my heart’s
core’ - metaphor for Hamlet’s admiration of Horatio and desire to hold their friendship close – he
admires how balanced, calm and level-headed Horatio is (unlike Hamlet)
, Hamlet: ‘Observe mine uncle. If his occulted guilt / Do not itself unkennel in one speech, / It is a
damned ghost that we have seen’ [3.2]
Hamlet to Claudius in response to how he is: ‘of the chameleon’s dish’ [3.2]
Hamlet: ‘Lady, shall I lie in your lap?’ ‘my head upon your lap’ ‘country matters’ ‘That’s a fair
thought to lie between maid’s legs’ [3.2]
Hamlet: ‘[refers to his mother as a] hobby-horse' [3.2]
Hamlet calls the play ‘The Mouse-trap' [3.2]
Hamlet: ‘Now could I drink hot / blood’ ‘And do such bitter business’ [3.2]
Claudius: ‘O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven’ [3.3]
Claudius: ‘Is there not rain enough in the heavens / To wash it [his ‘cursed hand’] white as
snow?’ [3.3]
Claudius: ‘I am still possessed / Of those effects for which I did the murder, / My crown, mine
own ambition, and my Queen’ [3.3]
Hamlet: ‘this is hire and salary, not revenge’ [3.3]
Claudius: ‘My words fly up, my thoughts remain / below / Words without thoughts never to
heaven go’ [3.3]
Hamlet: ‘You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s / wife’ [3.4]
Hamlet: ‘rank sweat of an enseamed bed / Stewed in corruption’ [3.4]
Hamlet: ‘Do you see nothing there?’
Gertrude: ‘Nothing at all, yet all that is I see’ [3.4]
Gertrude: ‘This is the very coinage of your brain’ [3.4]
Hamlet: ‘[don’t tell Claudius this:] That I essentially am not in madness, / But mad in craft’ [3.4]
Claudius: ‘[Hamlet is] loved of the distracted multitude’ [4.3]
Captain: ‘We go to gain a little patch of ground / That hath in it no profit but the name’ [4.4]
Hamlet: ‘my dull revenge’ [4.4]
Hamlet: ‘whether it be / Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple / Of thinking too precisely on
the event [4.4]
Hamlet: ‘How stand I then, / That have a father killed, a mother stained, / Excitements of my
reason and my blood, / And let all sleep, while to my shame I see / The imminent death of twenty
thousand men’ [4.4]
Key Quotes
Francisco: ‘I am sick at heart’ [1.1]
Horatio: ‘What art thou that usurp’st this time of night’ -> thoughtful, logical approach than
giving in to fear or superstition – a rational response under pressure – emotional steadiness
Horatio: ‘This bodes some strange eruption to our state’ -> bad omen for Denmark, something is
not right [1.1]
Horatio: ‘young Fortinbras / Of unimproved mettle hot and full’ [1.1]
Hamlet: ‘O that this too too solid flesh would melt’ [1.2]
Hamlet: ‘How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world’ [1.2]
Hamlet: ‘frailty, thy name is / woman.’ [1.2]
Laertes [to Ophelia]: ‘weigh what loss your honour may sustain’ [1.3]
Polonius [to Ophelia]: ‘think yourself a baby’ [1.3]
Ophelia [in reply to Polonius forbidding her to see Hamlet]: ‘I shall obey, my lord’ [1.3]
Horatio [to Hamlet about why he should not follow the ghost]: ‘might deprive your sovereignty of
reason / And draw you into madness?’ [1.4]
Marcellus: ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ [1.4]
Ghost: ‘Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder’ [1.5]
Hamlet: ‘I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on’ [1.5]
Hamlet: ‘O cursed spite, / That I was ever born to set it right’ [1.5]
Ophelia: ‘stockings fouled, / Ungartered’ ‘with a look so piteous in purport / As if he had been
loosed out of hell’ [2.1]
Claudius: ‘gather’ ‘glean’ [2.2]
Gertrude: ‘His father’s death, and our o’erhasty marriage’ [2.2]
Polonius: ‘in her duty and obedience’ [2.2]
Polonius: ‘I’ll loose my daughter to him’ [2.2]
Polonius: ‘Though this be madness, yet there is / method in’t’ [2.2]
Hamlet [to R+G]: ‘Denmark’s a prison’ [2.2]
,Hamlet: ‘the / beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. And / yet to me, what is this
quintessence of dust?’ [2.2]
Hamlet: ‘Yet I, / A dull and muddy-mettled rascal’ ‘unpregnant of my cause’ [2.2]
Hamlet: ‘Bloody, bawdy villain, / Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless, / villain! / O
vengeance!’ [2.2]
Hamlet: ‘I, the son of a dear father murdered, / Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, /
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, / And fall a-cursing like a very drab, / A
stallion!’ [2.2]
Hamlet: ‘the play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King’ [2.2]
Claudius: ‘lawful espials’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘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?’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘To die, to sleep’ = ‘consummation’ - sleep as an extended metaphor of death as sleep
and a satisfactory conclusion, yet he fears ‘the dread of something after death’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘The fair Ophelia – Nymph' - beautiful, loves her deeply [3.1]
Hamlet to Ophelia: ‘are you honest?’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘Get thee to a nunnery, why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?’ [3.1]
Hamlet: ‘We are arrant / knaves all, believe none of us’ [3.1]
Ophelia: ‘O help him, sweet heavens’ ‘O heavenly powers, restore him’ ‘O what a noble mind is
here o’erthrown’ [3.1]
Claudius: ‘Madness in great ones must not unwatched go’ [3.1]
Hamlet [to the players]: ‘[theatre’s purpose is to] hold as ’twere the mirror up to / nature [3.2]
Hamlet: ‘Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man / As e’er my conversation coped withal’ - most
honourable man he has ever met (the closest, most honest relationship in the play)
Hamlet: ‘[praises those who are] not a pipe for Fortune’s finger’ - praising Horatio for making
things happen rather than being a victim of fate/chance / personifies fate again (its power over
people like Hamlet or perhaps Ophelia)
Hamlet: ‘Give me that man / That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him / In my heart’s
core’ - metaphor for Hamlet’s admiration of Horatio and desire to hold their friendship close – he
admires how balanced, calm and level-headed Horatio is (unlike Hamlet)
, Hamlet: ‘Observe mine uncle. If his occulted guilt / Do not itself unkennel in one speech, / It is a
damned ghost that we have seen’ [3.2]
Hamlet to Claudius in response to how he is: ‘of the chameleon’s dish’ [3.2]
Hamlet: ‘Lady, shall I lie in your lap?’ ‘my head upon your lap’ ‘country matters’ ‘That’s a fair
thought to lie between maid’s legs’ [3.2]
Hamlet: ‘[refers to his mother as a] hobby-horse' [3.2]
Hamlet calls the play ‘The Mouse-trap' [3.2]
Hamlet: ‘Now could I drink hot / blood’ ‘And do such bitter business’ [3.2]
Claudius: ‘O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven’ [3.3]
Claudius: ‘Is there not rain enough in the heavens / To wash it [his ‘cursed hand’] white as
snow?’ [3.3]
Claudius: ‘I am still possessed / Of those effects for which I did the murder, / My crown, mine
own ambition, and my Queen’ [3.3]
Hamlet: ‘this is hire and salary, not revenge’ [3.3]
Claudius: ‘My words fly up, my thoughts remain / below / Words without thoughts never to
heaven go’ [3.3]
Hamlet: ‘You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s / wife’ [3.4]
Hamlet: ‘rank sweat of an enseamed bed / Stewed in corruption’ [3.4]
Hamlet: ‘Do you see nothing there?’
Gertrude: ‘Nothing at all, yet all that is I see’ [3.4]
Gertrude: ‘This is the very coinage of your brain’ [3.4]
Hamlet: ‘[don’t tell Claudius this:] That I essentially am not in madness, / But mad in craft’ [3.4]
Claudius: ‘[Hamlet is] loved of the distracted multitude’ [4.3]
Captain: ‘We go to gain a little patch of ground / That hath in it no profit but the name’ [4.4]
Hamlet: ‘my dull revenge’ [4.4]
Hamlet: ‘whether it be / Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple / Of thinking too precisely on
the event [4.4]
Hamlet: ‘How stand I then, / That have a father killed, a mother stained, / Excitements of my
reason and my blood, / And let all sleep, while to my shame I see / The imminent death of twenty
thousand men’ [4.4]
