The play's the thing,

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak

With most miraculous organ.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

With devotion's visage,

And pious action, we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

Act iii. Sc. I.

To be, or not to be? that is the question :—
Whether 't is 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 ;-'t is a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. 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 despised 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 fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death--
The undiscovered 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 not 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.

Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

Act iii. Sc. I.

Act iii. Sc. I.

Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind.

Act iii. Sc. I.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

Act iii. Sc. I.

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword.

Act iii. Sc. I.

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers !

Act iii. Sc. I.

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.

Act iii. Sc. 1.

Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.

Act iii. Sc. 2

It out-herods Herod.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

To hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature.

I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

O, reform it altogether.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

No, let the candid tongue lick absurd pomp ;
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

They are not a pipe for fortune's finger

To sound what stops she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, aye, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. Something too much of this.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Here's metal more attractive.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

This is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
Oph. 'T is brief my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

The lady protests too much, methinks.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Why, let the strucken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep;

"T is now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to the world.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

About some act,

That has no relish of salvation in 't.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

False as dicers' oaths.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow!
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

At your age,

The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble.

And I the matter will re-word: which madness

Would gambol from.

Act iii. Sc. 4.