Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief, That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem; For they are actions that a man might play; But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads And recks not his own read.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all,--to thine own self 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.

You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal,--except my life, except my life, except my life.

this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,--why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

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

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:

But that the dread of something after death,-- The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns,--puzzles the will,

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,--two dishes, but to one table: that's the end.

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

is't possible a young maid's wits Should be as mortal as an old man's life?

Now cracks a noble heart.--Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! Why does the drum come hither?

How these things came about: so shall you hear Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts; Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters; Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause; And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I Truly deliver.