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HAMLET QUOTES
by: William Shakespeare

SUMMARY TRANSLATION CHARACTERS MAIN IDEAS QUOTES FURTHER STUDY WRITING HELP TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Hamlet: Popular pages

l’ll have grounds
NO FEAR
More relative than this
No Fear Hamlet
(II.ii.538-9)
CHARACTERS
Character List
For the whole of the second act, Hamlet delays his revenge: although he trusted the Ghost
at first, he has begun to wonder whether the Ghost might actually be a devil trying to tempt CHARACTERS
Hamlet: Character Analysis
him into committing a terrible sin. It’s too great a risk to murder Claudius on the evidence of
the Ghost’s testimony: Hamlet needs more proof of Claudius’s guilt. Throughout the play, MAIN IDEAS

Hamlet struggles with the impossibility of being absolutely certain about anything. Plot Analysis
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MAIN IDEAS
Is Hamlet really mad?
You should not have believed me
MAIN IDEAS
(III.i.116) Important Quotations Explained

MAIN IDEAS
In the space of five lines Hamlet tells Ophelia that “I did love you once” (III.i.) and also that “I
Themes
loved you not” (III.i.). The audience finds itself in the same position as Ophelia: we don’t know
FURTHER STUDY
what to believe. Hamlet reveals more of his innermost thoughts than any of Shakespeare’s
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characters, but he still remains in many ways a mystery. We never learn whether he really
loved Ophelia, or why he decides to treat her so badly as he pursues his revenge. It may
even be that Hamlet himself does not know the answer to these questions. At the heart of
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Hamlet lies profound uncertainty and doubt.

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The rest is silence
(V.ii.342)

These are Hamlet’s last words. Unlike many of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, Hamlet never
resigns himself to death or embraces it. He spends his final moments imagining the world
after his death and begging Horatio to ‘report me and my cause aright’ (V.ii.323). When death
finally catches up to him, Hamlet’s greatest regret is that he must stop talking. Despite the
thousands of dazzling words Hamlet has poured out, he has gotten no closer to
understanding the truth or purpose of his life.

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