Hamlet Act 5 Scene 1 Quotes & Sayings

Now I am alone.
Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba
That he should weep for her? What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appall the free ... Hamlet Act II, Scene II — William Shakespeare

There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, 'Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams.' Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, 'How good or how bad am I?' That's where courage comes in. — Erma Bombeck

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public. — Winston S. Churchill

Surprise, surprise - the good guys don't always win. Sometimes, they're lucky if they just get to keep on being the good guys. — Anthony Breznican

It's a pity that the rich have more freedom to hang or drown themselves than the rest of us Christians. — William Shakespeare

The Play's the Thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King. — William Shakespeare

I think most five-foot-two people would be quite offended if they were to be called dwarves. — Richard C. Armitage

Keep your passions in check, but beware of giving your reason free rein. — Karl Kraus

In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. . .
(Claudius, from Hamlet, Act 3, scene 3) — William Shakespeare

Take me home tonight, listen honey, just like Ronnie sang, be my little baby. — Eddie Money

Ghost: Murder most foul, as in the best it is. But this most foul, strange and unnatural. — William Shakespeare

People do look to others for some leadership, and it's not bad for them to supply it when they feel that way. — Arthur Miller

A preacher should have the skill to teach the unlearned simply roundly, and plainly; for teaching is of more importance than exhorting. — Martin Luther

On the mantelpiece, the photograph of a chimpanzee and a statuette of the Buddha. This proximity, more accidental than intentional, makes me wonder over and over where my place might be between these two extrems, man's pre and transfiguration. — Cioran

Imagine the same scene in HAMLET if Pullman had written it. Hamlet, using a mystic pearl, places the poison in the cup to kill Claudius. We are all told Claudius will die by drinking the cup. Then Claudius dies choking on a chicken bone at lunch. Then the Queen dies when Horatio shows her the magical Mirror of Death. This mirror appears in no previous scene, nor is it explained why it exists. Then Ophelia summons up the Ghost from Act One and kills it, while she makes a speech denouncing the evils of religion. Ophelia and Hamlet are parted, as it is revealed in the last act that a curse will befall them if they do not part ways. — John C. Wright

For Humanity sweeps onward: where today the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. — James Russell Lowell