O, That this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,

Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads.

And recks not his own rede.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be:

For loan oft loses both itself and friend.

This above all — to thine ownself be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

More matter with less art.

Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

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? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.

Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?

O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

The play's the thing,

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

We are oft to blame in this, —

'Tis too much prov'd, — that with devotion's visage,

And pious action, we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

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 despis'd 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 these 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 naught 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.

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, — all but one, — shall live; the rest shall keep as they are.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

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.

Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,

And do such bitter business, as the day

Would quake to look on.

Let me be cruel, not unnatural;

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,

But in battalions.

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 rises 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? Now get yet to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.

Lay her i' the earth:

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring!

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.

The rest is silence.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

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