Quotes & Sayings About Polonius

Polonius: My lord, I will take my leave of you.
Hamlet: You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal ... — William Shakespeare

When we look to presumed sources of origin for competing evolutionary explanations of the giraffe's long neck, we find either nothing at all, or only the shortest of speculative conjectures. Length, of course, need not correspond with importance. Garrulous old Polonius , in a rare moment of clarity, reminded us that "brevity is the soul of wit" (and then immediately vitiated his wise observation with a flood of woolly words about Hamlet 's Madness. — Stephen Jay Gould

We enter upon a stage which we did not design and we find ourselves part of an action that was not of our making. Each of us being a main character in his own drama plays subordinate parts in the dramas of others, and each drama constrains the others. In my drama, perhaps, I am Hamlet or Iago or at least the swineherd who may yet become a prince, but to you I am only A Gentleman or at best Second Murderer, while you are my Polonius or my Gravedigger, but your own hero. Each of our dramas exerts constraints on each other's, making the whole different from the parts, but still dramatic. — Alasdair MacIntyre

This is the very ecstasy of love. — William Shakespeare

Forgive me. I didn't mean to kill you, Polonius. The blade slipped out of the sheath, and it struck you. — Osamu Dazai

And that's another thing. What if I were to talk to Tanker, find out if he's happy at the Polonius Room, see if maybe he wants to come back? He was always such a key part of this kitchen."
Rickey pointed a chocolate-smudged finger at Lenny. "Don't you dare. If I decide I want to talk to him, I'll talk to him. I told you, I don't need you handling my business for me."
"I understand," Lenny said, making a mental note to call Tanker. — Poppy Z. Brite

POLONIUS: What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET: Words, words, words. — William Shakespeare

The neurotic thinks himself both Hamlet and Claudius, in a world that belongs to Polonius. — Mignon McLaughlin

Be the best of anything you get into. If you want to be a whore, it's your life. Be a damn good one. Don't chippy at anything. Anything worth having is worth working for.'
It was her version of Polonius' speech to Laertes. With that wisdom in my pouch, I was to go out and buy my future. — Maya Angelou

And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. — William Shakespeare

POLONIUS My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.
HAMLET Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
POLONIUS By th'mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.
HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.
POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET Or like a whale?
POLONIUS Very like a whale.
HAMLET Then I will come to my mother by and by. - They fool me to the top of my bent. - I will come by and by. — William Shakespeare

Lord Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. — William Shakespeare

Where is Polonius?
HAMLET
In heaven. Send hither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i' th' other place yourself. But if indeed you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby. — William Shakespeare

He [Hamlet] sees ghosts and listens to dreams. And when his ghost father tells him that he (Hamlet Senior) was killed by his brother and asks Hamlet Junior to avenge his death, in the right, honorable way, Hamlet says yes, yes, yes, he'll do it.
But somehow he never gets round to it. Not like the other two young men in the play. The Norwegian Prince Fortinbras(...) has made his life [!!] pursuing the honor that his father lost when Hamlet Senior beat him in single combat. (...). When the lord chamberlain,Polonius, is killed, his son, Laertes, returns to the court immediately, demanding restitution, (...).
So there is no shortage of examples of how young men are expected to and do act in this world where honor demands an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. But Hamlet doesn't do it. Instead, he beats up on his girlfriend and he's cruel to his mother. — Tina Packer

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. — William Shakespeare

Words, words, words. Polonius — William Shakespeare

Love? His affections do not that way tend — William Shakespeare

ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.
HAMLET The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing -
GUILDENSTERN A thing my lord?
HAMLET Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after! — William Shakespeare

POLONIUS : My Lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET : God's bodykins man, better. Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. — William Shakespeare

To paraphrase Shakespeare's Polonius, you sometimes have to get your hands a little dirty to set things straight. — Lynn Steward

The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.
Polonius — William Shakespeare

Hamlet is to Macbeth somewhat as the Ghost is to the Witches. Revenge, or ambition, in its inception may have a lofty, even a majestic countenance, but when it has "coupled hell" and become crime, it grows increasingly foul and sordid. We love and admire Hamlet so much at the beginning that we tend to forget that he is as hot-blooded as the earlier Macbeth when he kills Polonius and the King, cold-blooded as the later Macbeth or Iago when he sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to death. — Harold Clarke Goddard

Use them after your own honour and dignity; the less they deserve, the more merit in your bounty. - Hamlet to Polonius — William Shakespeare

More grief to hide than hate to utter love. Polonius, Hamlet. — William Shakespeare

I read the miserable story of the play in which she was the one true loving soul. It obviously described the spread of an epidemic brain fever which, like typhoid, was perhaps caused by seepings from the palace graveyard into the Elsinore water supply. From an inconspicuous start among sentries on the battlements the infection spread through prince, king, prime minister and courtiers causing hallucinations, logomania and paranoia resulting in insane suspicions and murderous impulses. I imagined myself entering the palace quite early in the drama with all the executive powers of an efficient public health officer. The main carriers of the disease (Claudius, Polonius and the obviously incurable Hamlet) would he quarantined in separate wards. A fresh water supply and efficient modern plumbing would soon set the Danish state right and Ophelia, seeing this gruff Scottish doctor pointing her people toward a clean and healthy future, would be powerless to withhold her love. — Alasdair Gray

What are you reading?" Polonius asked.
"Words, words, words," said Hamlet.
"And what's the subject?"
"Lesser than the king, but still not nothing."
It took Polonius a moment to realize he had answered another meaning of 'subject.' "I mean what do you read about?"
"All in a line, back and forth." said Hamlet. "I go from left to right with my mind full, and then must drop it there and head back empty-headed to the left side again, and take up another load to carry forward. It's a most tedious job, and when I'm done, there are all the letters where I found them, unchanged despite my having carried them all into my head. — Orson Scott Card

To thine ownself be true - Polonius — William Shakespeare

HAMLET [ ... ] 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.
CLAUDIUS Alas, alas.
HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this?
HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. — William Shakespeare

Will you walk out of the air, my lord? HAMLET Into my grave. — William Shakespeare

If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone. — William Shakespeare

Polonius to Laertes (in Hamlet): To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man [or woman]. — Christopher Ryan

Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.
Polonius: It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet: Or like a whale?
Polonius: Very like a whale. — William Shakespeare

- Where is Polonius?
- In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself. — William Shakespeare

Maybe I got sick of accusations, sick of being Polonius's daughter, and Laertes's sister, and Hamlet's girlfriend. Maybe I wanted, for a short while, simply to be myself. — Lisa Mantchev

Such wanton, wild, and usual slips/ As are companions noted and most known/ To youth and liberty. — William Shakespeare