Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

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.

The serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown.

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhous'led, disappointed, unanel'd; No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head:

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be A couch for luxury and damned incest.

nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven, And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her.

I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there;

And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain, Unmix'd with bas...

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;--

O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!--

I will be brief:--your noble son is mad:

And he, repulsed,--a short tale to make,-- Fell into a sadness; then into a fast; Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness; Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension, Into the madness wherein now he raves, And all we wail for.

for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ,

the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

To be, or not to be,--that

ay, there's the rub;

But that the dread of something after death,--

And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?

Get thee to a nunnery:

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another:

we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.

trippingly on the tongue:

the mirror up to nature;

O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet?

The lady protests too much, methinks.

Never alone Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow?

May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?

Gertrude, do not drink.

I will, my lord;