For my final look at famous quotations from the works of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) as the 400th anniversary of his death approaches (on April 23), here are some famous speeches and smaller quotations from “Hamlet.”
Among the smallest is one that needs to be short:
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
— Act II, Scene 2
If these weekly posts have you muttering “The play’s the thing” and not quite knowing why, here’s help:
“The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”
— Act II, Scene 2
But both the most familiar and the most misquoted speech in Hamlet is known as “Hamlet’s soliloquy.” It gets misused for just about anything that can be considered a question, or anything that has to do with sleep — but it’s worth remembering that when this speech occurs, Hamlet is considering being or not being: suicide.
“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 heartache 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.”
It has given me pause as I contemplate the quotations in this series of posts to consider that their author has been “off this mortal coil” for nearly 400 years. I hope that you’ve enjoyed considering his work along with me.
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Filed under: Browsing through Bartlett's, Expressions
Tags: Shakespeare at 400
My favorite play. I must have read it at least a dozen times. Did you ever catch the oddity of the very opening lines?
Not recently, but what better day than today to go and check? Thank you!
So many wonderful lines! I have really enjoyed this series on Shakespeare. Thank you!
You're welcome. I'm very glad that you've enjoyed it.