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Quotations from Hamlet

Hamlet is a drama film portraying William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The film is the first sound film of the play to be in English, but the second movie overall (the first was in Urdu). Directed by Laurence Olivier. Starring Laurence Olivier, Basil Sydney, Eileen Herlie, Jean Simmons, and Stanley Holloway. The film won the Oscar awards for Best Picture and Best Actor.

Even though purists argue Hamlet is too far from the original play, because Olivier made too many alterations in order to make the four-hour play only two hours, the movie is still seen as one of the greatest movies ever made in many circles. Read some quotes from this fantastic movie below.


Narrator: So oft it chances in particular men / That through some vicious mole of nature in them, / By the o'ergrowth of some complexion / Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, / Or by some habit grown too much; that these men - / Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, / Their virtues else - be they as pure as grace, / Shall in the general censure take corruption / From that particular fault... This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.
Horatio: I have heard, the cock that is the herald to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: 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 heart-ache 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: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.
Marcellus: [referring to the Ghost] Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again! Bernardo: In the same figure, like the dead King Hamlet.
Horatio: Take up the bodies: such a sight as this / Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. / Go, bid the soldiers shoot!
Horatio: Good night, sweet prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Next: How Green Was My Valley
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